


Book Two: Smoke

by crowleyshouseplant



Series: Azula's Search [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Flashbacks, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Azula continues her journey to restore her bending under the guise of discovering what happened to Ursa. Traveling with Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki, she journeys through the Fire Nation, surviving shipwreck and hardship as she finally makes her way to Ba Sing Se to find the answers she seeks and to confront the uncle she believes betrayed her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Place Called Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part of Azula's Search! You can find the first part, [Book One: Ash](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6624382/chapters/15158491), here: [[click](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6624382/chapters/15158491)]
> 
> cw: self-harm

For Azula, it was humiliating and insufferable being forced to crew her own ship. Before, when she had been sent to fetch her brother home, she had stayed out of the crew's sight, out of touch from the wind and the sun and the spray of the water. Hidden behind her curtains, born on the shoulders of those made to carry her, she had done nothing but waited and plotted, devising the lies that would best entrap her brother.

It had had left her bored and restless as she waited for them to make shore. And then she had to wait again for Zuko and Iroh to return from—wherever. There had only been seashells to keep her company, dirty little things, gritted with sand. They hadn’t even seen her when they had entered.

And then she had waited for Zuko to accept her lies: come home, Father misses you, you’re forgiven, there’s nothing more important than family.

Blah blah blah.

She missed those days. Now, there was no one to carry her, her lies had been told, and she had to sail the ship with the other girls. Suki and Ty Lee took to it well--they were used to working for everything. Mai did it as she did everything--gloomily. They didn't seem to mind how the wind chapped their hands raw, how heaving ropes left tender blisters to harden into callouses, how their nails split and bled from attending the sails and scrubbing the deck. Azula no longer had the hands of a princess, and she missed the attention her servants would have once paid to them. She missed how they scrubbed her feet, soothing the tight knots that shaped her arches. She deserved more than this, more than her cracked and splitting nails, more than her hair perpetually crusted with salt. She had lost her bending--why wasn't that enough? Why did she have to lose everything else that made life bearable?

At the end of the day, she was so weary she could not help but fall asleep quickly. Perhaps this too was her brother’s plan. Make her weak with exhaustion so she was unable to scheme and devise.

She didn’t deserve to be treated like this.

She wasn’t trapped in her room anymore but there was still no escape. And the scrape of water against the hull made her nervous.

She had been caught in water once before. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Bent low and chained to a grate. Made helpless and weak and defeated.

She turned on her side, blankets crushed around her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear the ship’s wooden ribs creaking like old women. But there was another noise too—Mai and Ty Lee together, when they should have been sleeping.

What were they doing, like that? 

Azula’s skin crawled as she listened to them speak with each other quietly, and she wondered what they were talking about, together in the dark.

She put her fingers in her ears to block out Ty Lee’s high pitched giggles, Mai’s reticent “shut up,” and tried not to think about them together--happy, as if nothing had happened. As she listened, struggling to hear, to discern each individual word, she thought about what she could say to Zuko on their return. What she might imply about Mai and Ty Lee together. How she could break his heart as she gushed about how they got on together so well as she smiled her cruel smile and assured him that it was probably nothing.

But that would be ages away because they wouldn't be home any time soon.

Predictably, Suki was the one who questioned her the most. She missed the old days when Mai and Ty Lee did as they were told without comment or question or challenge. Suki wanted a game plan. Suki wanted to know what would happen next after Ember Island. Suki practically wanted a map with their entire course neatly laid out.

For the first time in a long time, Azula didn’t have a plan. If her bending didn’t come back when she was at Ember Island, she didn’t know where to find it next. If she couldn’t find anything about Mom on Ember Island—she’d have to sail north, to Mom’s hometown.

And she couldn’t do that.

She couldn’t be on the water for that long, with these people.

“We’ll ask Uncle Iroh,” she said.

Mai picked at her rice, glowering. “Wouldn’t your uncle have told Zuko everything he needed to know? What’s the point of going to Ba Sing Se? We’re not going to wander our way across the four nations. We follow the clues and go home as quickly as possible.”

Azula leaned towards her. “It must be hard for you, helping me look for my mother. At least my mother has an excuse for being absent—but yours doesn’t. You already know where your mother is, and yours knows where you are, so the fact that she doesn’t care about you hurts all the more." Azula casually ate a bite of rice.

Mai rolled her eyes. “You figured me out. Well done.”

“Oh, come on, Azula,” Ty Lee said. She slipped her hand in Mai’s, like she was comforting her or something. Why would Mai need comfort? It wasn’t like she was the one who had lost her bending or who was sent on an impossible quest to find a mother who was probably dead because Firelord Ozai never did anything half way. It wasn't like Mai had to rescue her father from anything--after all, Firelord Ozai had handed her father everything he had ever wanted, practically rescuing him from political obscurity.

Azula scowled at them. “If you two want to run along home, please don’t stay on my account. You volunteered to go, you can volunteer to leave if the rigors of travel or my company are too much for you. You needn’t worry about my feelings. They won’t be hurt. After all, I have none.”

Suki put her bowl of rice down with a small thump. “Can you not do that?”

“Do what?” Azula said, feigning innocence. “You’re the one asking the questions. I’m simply answering them. Or would you rather I be sullen and sulky like Mai?” She folded her arms across her chest and pulled her face into an exaggerated frown.

“You shouldn’t treat your friends that way,” Suki said. “They’re doing this for you, even though you betrayed them and threw them in prison.”

Azula put down her chopsticks, and slipped her hands in her sleeves so they would not see the fine shivering in her fingers. “Friends? Do you think we were ever friends?” She looked at Mai and Ty Lee. “What do you think? Do friends betray each other by stabbing them in the back?”

Ty Lee lunged forward, but Mai and Suki held her back. “If we’re going to talk about betrayal,” Ty Lee said, “then you betrayed us first. You ordered them to burn my safety net!”

"Really?" Mai asked. "That the example you're going to use?"

Azula smoothed her hair. “Mai has a point. Are you still mad at me for that? I knew you could handle it. Besides, don’t even pretend that you weren’t flattered I chose you first, just like you were when you were a little no name nobody.”

“I don’t need you to give me a name or a face,” Ty Lee said, her cheeks flushing. “I don’t need you. At all. For anything.”

“That’s right, Ty Lee, you don’t need me at all, for anything. You didn’t need me when you were starving, and you didn’t need me when you were about to get thrown out of the Academy, and you certainly don’t need me now.”

Ty Lee clenched her hands into fists, her mouth twisting but Mai interrupted her. “Calm down, Ty Lee. She’s trying to make you angry. Just ignore her and she’ll go away. Or she’ll get bored.”

“That’s your song, Mai. I don’t get bored.” Azula stood and stretched. “So there you see it, Suki. You were wrong about us. We were never friends.”

Ty Lee sagged to her knees, all the fight draining out of her as her shoulders hunched and drooped. “You don’t mean that. You can’t just forget the past and mean that.” Tears began to fall.

Mai was silent as usual. Not that that meant anything. She never said anything unless it was a real game changer. Like how she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula.

How rich Zuko must be to be so loved.

Sighing, Mai handed Ty Lee a dark silk handkerchief, and Ty Lee wiped her eyes and cheeks.

It was a good thing that Ty Lee had not wept when she had blocked her chi. How Azula hated to see Ty Lee cry. Of course, even if she had cried, it wouldn't have changed anything. She would have still thrown them in a place she would never have to see their faces again. And now, they crowded around her, trapping her with their accusations and their treachery. “This has been a delicious meal. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did,” Azula said.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t share our meals together anymore,” Suki said. “It might be better for everyone.”

Azula shrugged. “Do whatever you want. Don’t trouble yourself on my account.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Suki said. “You think we’ve underestimated you, and that we don’t know what we’re up against, but we know you’re still dangerous. We know that you’re still unbalanced, and that you’re waiting to strike when you think we aren’t looking. But we are looking. We're not going to let you hurt anybody, we're not going to let you hurt us.”

Azula yawned. “I'm reformed now. I wouldn't dream of hurting anybody. If you excuse me, I’m going to make sure we are still on course for Ember Island. It would be a shame to delay our journey more than necessary by getting lost or worse.”

It did not take them too long to find their way to Ember Island. The beach was populated with the same sort of adolescents that had been there the last time Azula had come here, with Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee. She watched them from the deck of the ship as she navigated it towards the dock their family had once used regularly, every year. They were laughing or playing or lounging in the sun. Even when she had joined them that day on the beach, they had been apart from them, separate from them, better than them and their petty, insignificant concerns. With a shake of her head, Azula turned away from them, focusing instead on their house at the top of the hill as they left the boat and walked up the stony, sandy path.

Their old residence had definitely seen grander days. It had been dilapidated when she had last been here with Zuko—but it hadn't looked like this.

Now, it was almost ruined. Scorch marks blackened the walls, the roof destroyed. She recognized the shadow and ash of her brother’s bending—he had been here, after that night on the beach, he had returned and done what they should have done in the first place: destroyed everything. Azula’s breath caught in her throat as she rubbed her palm against one of the burns. Her hand came away, dusty with charcoal and ash. She blew softly, and it caught the air in a fine smoke.

The door had been knocked down—as if their memories were up for anybody to grab, for anyone to take a look.

They should have burned this place down after they had finished humiliating those annoying teenagers at that stupid party. They should have burned it with a fire so hot the entire beach turned to glass.

Together, Azula knew that she and Zuko could have made a fire that hot.

She clenched her fist as she remembered the night of the comet—how hot he had burned, how hot they had both burned. Except, she should have unleashed a volcano upon him instead of the pathetic blue fire she had used, should have captured him in jagged walls of obsidian if only she had not sent her earthbenders away. But by then, her fire had already gone—the comet had allowed her a momentary grace, easily given and just as easily taken away as it followed the aborted path of her father.

Zuzu never should have even stood a chance.

Mai and Ty Lee clustered behind her.

“I thought it’d be bigger,” Mai said. “You always had such great things to say about it.”

Azula turned, smiling at Mai. “Why don’t we compare? Where’s your Ember Island beach house?”

Mai blinked at her unimpressed while Ty Lee looped her arm around Mai’s shoulder, laughing softly against her neck. It sounded like she was laughing at Azula but that was impossible since, dilapidated condition or no, she was the only one whose family had a beach house and not a one of them did so why were they laughing at her when it was Mai who had walked into her humiliation, eyes open? It had almost been too easy.

Azula scowled at them.

“What are we looking for?” Suki said, stepping forward, taking charge.

Azula’s skin bristled. “Anything my mother may have left behind.”

She turned to face the ruined door, whining softly on its broken hinges. This place, this house—it brooded with memories that Azula had not bothered to remember for years because they were so depressing. She stood still in the doorway. She could not move forward because if she did, she would not be able to breathe. Already, she was breathing so shallowly the air was not reaching her stomach. It was because of the dust, she decided, there was so much dust and ash here, of course a person wouldn't be able to breathe properly.

Azula started when she felt someone gently touch the small of her back, fist already swinging before she saw that it was just Suki who had dared to touch her. Suki blocked her would-be blow easily, fluidly dropping into a defensive stance.

Out of the corner of her eye, Azula saw that Ty Lee’s fingers were crooked and ready to find those most vulnerable points, ready to drop her again like some tired piece in a game that Azula had already lost. One of Mai’s knives glinted in her gloved fingers.

Azula would have stepped back, hands raised because a princess always surrenders with honor, but Suki had her tight in her grasp, her hand clenched around her wrist, a dull promise of pain if she squeezed a little harder, or twisted just slightly to the right or left. Azula could escape, easily, by sidestepping and pulling Suki off balance, but now wasn’t the time. Where was she to go? She couldn't sail the ship by herself.

“It’s only me,” Suki said, gently, like she was an animal in need of being calmed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” At Suki’s gesture, Ty Lee stood down, and Mai stowed her knife away reluctantly a few moments after.

Once, they had follows Azula's orders. Her lead. Her command.

Azula remembered to scoff at Suki’s words as she pulled herself from her grasp. “Don’t overestimate yourself. As if I could be frightened by you.”

Suki sighed. “Why don’t we start with your mother’s room.” She put firmer pressure on the small of Azula's back as she stepped from the porch and into the house, gently pushing Azula to lead the way.

Goosebumps prickled Azula's skin even though the night wasn’t chill, even though there was no reason for them to be there. Azula rubbed her knuckles over her arm until her skin was red and sore, but still her gooseflesh stayed and still a creeping cold descended down her spine. It was the same chill she had felt when she was watching her father and her mother at a table, steam from their tea twisting between them.

She longed for the days when her body had never betrayed her—not with its stuttered heartbeats, not with her knotted up chi gnarled up inside her, not her hair refusing to stay put and perfect, not even her skin that had once been smooth and flawless and beautiful. Now scabs scarred her skin and she would look down and find them bleeding with her nails daubed in red.

This place made her heart jump against her rib cage, made her breath shallow and fast until it was more like a pant against the certainty that if she were to continue to enter the house she would be trapped—that the walls would fall on her and she would be crushed under the burned out remains of her brother’s presence and his absence, the dust smelling like the afterthoughts of jasmine tea, the kind her uncle used to make, and the foundations shaking with the secrets that she had once heard whispered by her mother beneath the beach umbrellas when Azula was not supposed to be around, when she was not supposed to be listening--she shook her head, she would not remember it, it was too depressing to be remembered.

Azula dug her heels into the wood, trying to steady her breath, trying to push it down into her stomach and breathe just breathe, but she couldn’t find it. It flitted in her lungs and her mouth and her nose like the butterflies that had once flown in their gardens, like the butterflies she had lured with sugary tea and left to down, their lacy wings kept fine and fragile and delicate in crystalized sugar.

She had thought that Mom would slap her hands for that, make them red and smarting, but she hadn’t. She never did anything but sigh and wonder and grieve.

“Azula?” Ty Lee’s face loomed in front of Azula’s swimming vision like a pale moon. “Are you okay?”

Azula opened her mouth to say something that would remind Ty Lee that she was Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, and that she was always perfect and kept and poised and composed, but the only thing that fell from her lips was a hiccupped gasp as her hand gripped at her chest, as if she could physically rip through the skin and bone and force herself to breathe.

Then Mai’s voice, bored and distant. “What’s wrong with her?”

Suki guided Azula to sit on the crumbling steps. “She’s having an anxiety attack.”

They were talking about her as if she didn’t exist. As if she weren't properly there. As if she were a thing instead of their princess.

She hated them. She hated Ty Lee for her hovering, Mai for her aloofness, how Suki was touching her elbows and guiding her to sit down, that this would surely be reported to Zuko who could tell anybody, who could tell their father, and then she was bowing her head between her knees, throwing up, and hating her stomach for betraying her, her body betraying her again and again and again, just like Mai and Ty Lee and Zuko.

“We don’t have to go in today, if you don’t want,” Suki said. “Or I can go in if you tell me where your mother stayed, and I can bring out her things to you. Or we can sleep and try again tomorrow. The night is warm, and I don’t think we’d need the shelter of a house tonight.”

Mai rolled her eyes, her arms folded tight across her chest. “I can’t believe this.”

“What do you want to do, Azula?”

She wanted to return to her father. She wanted her crown back. She wanted her bending back. She wanted to be home in the Fire Nation palace, where people would not dare touch her or even look upon her. “I want to never see your faces again.” She jerked from Suki’s grasp and stumbled to her knees before she staggered to her feet, swaying as she struggled for balance. “I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need your help.” She pulled at her hair. It hurt, and she did it again so that her skin would become large enough for her body, so there wouldn't be that dull ache as she felt it stretch too thinly over her bones.

Suki pulled away. “We’re only trying to help. Though why I don’t know.”

Azula laughed. “Stop pretending you care—I know you hate me, and you’re only here for them.” She jerked her chin at Mai and Ty Lee. “You still fear me, you still fear what I might do to them.”

“You’re right that I'm only here for them,” Suki said. “I don’t care about you. You defeated me. You threw me in prison. You used us to sneak into Ba Sing Se when we had come to help them. You are despicable to me, and I hope you never recover your bending.”

“I didn’t need my bending to bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se. I only needed you,” Azula said.

Suki’s mouth twisted. “But I made a promise to Firelord Zuko, and I made a promise to Ty Lee.”

“And let me guess,” Azula said, “you keep your promises.”

Suki pulled herself so she stood straight. “I do.”

Azula laughed until she lost her breath again, until her sides hurt and ached. What good had keeping promises done for any of them? Promises were made to be broken.

“Do you care for honor as much as dear Zuzu does?” Even though honor had exiled Zuko, had put that scar on his face. Had made him pick the wrong side, had brought him to his knees crawling back to Uncle, abandoning his father, his throne, his home. 

I restored my own honor, Zuko had said, looking at his Uncle with something like love.

As if she hadn’t been the first one who had told him that as she sat on the throne in Ba Sing Se.

“Can we please do something, instead of listening to this nonsense?" Mai said. 

Mai was right. This was nonsense. The things she felt were stupid and weak. Father would be so ashamed and embarrassed if he could see her now, though why should he judge when his bending was gone too, when he was in prison? It was funny, really, and so she laughed like she had that night when her lightening had hit Zuko, straight in the chest, after he had taunted her, promised he’d bend it back, but he broke that promise. He took the blast, smoking as he fell, unable to stand, unable to move, unable to speak, and she had done that, and she had done that with the cold fire and nothing had ever felt so hot, nothing had ever felt so feverish, nothing had ever felt so—

Ty Lee touched her shoulder, and Azula stopped laughing, jerking away.

“Princess Azula,” she said, her voice trilling and soft as a bird’s. “Are you alright?”

Azula shook herself. "I'm fine. Mai is just hilarious--wouldn't you agree?"

Mai sighed and put on a longer face than normal, and Ty Lee smiled at Azula. "No, I can't say that I do."

Suki stepped towards them, clearing her throat. “We’ll sleep outside, and start again tomorrow. Things will be better when it’s light. We will all have clearer heads and a better attitude.”

Silently, the girls made camp near the porch to their old house. Maybe Suki was right in this one thing, Azula thought as she fell asleep. Maybe when she woke, she would find find her bending restored as the sun thrummed beneath her skin, guiding her chi, waking her with fire and flame.

Azula woke with the sun when it was rising over the ocean. The water glinted, gleaming like it cradled the night stars in its hand. She stretched, pulling her skin tight over her bones under a thin sheen of sweat even though it wasn’t hot outside. She put her hand to her forehead because maybe she was sick. But she had always been sick, people said, not in her flesh, just in her head.

Azula forced herself to keep going, to ease her body into stretches that Ty Lee had taught her when they had first been friends. They’ll open your chi, she had said, and of course Ty Lee knew all about chi, how to make it flow, how to lock it up in one’s body, leaving them weak, hurt, betrayed.

Azula pressed her palm against her side where Ty Lee’s knuckles had struck light and firm, just like she danced. It had hurt so much it should have bruised, but it never had.

She slid into the splits. There was no stretch, no ache, no burn. She needed another person to help her really feel anything in this position, to push her harder so she could come back stronger. This was nothing. This was just a motion. Nothing would come of it but the steadying breath of her morning ritual.

Then, like the old days when her presence was a siren call to any lonely looking girl who wanted more than her parents could ever give her, Ty Lee was at her side, crouching so they faced each other eye to eye like equals.

“Do you want help?” she asked.

Azula lifted her head, forced herself to settle her face into blankness. “Do you what you want, Ty Lee. I certainly won’t stop you.” She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say no. The last time Ty Lee had touched her she had taken everything away, and what would her touch take away this time? But Ty Lee, that pink traipsing circus freak who didn’t even wear boots or bend fire, couldn’t know that, couldn’t know that Azula’s skin crawled when she heard her glass-tinkling laughter. They could both fell armies, but Azula had been more than an army, had done what her father’s men and grandfather’s men could not, and Ty Lee had made her fall in front of all of them.

Ty Lee took what she said for permission, and Azula stilled herself as she felt Ty Lee's hands encircle her ankle. The bone was fragile, easily twisted. Ty Lee was strong enough to sprain or break it without effort. She could hurt Azula with a flick of her wrist, a press of her fingers. It’s something Azula had thought about all the time when she had cradled Ty Lee’s limbs in her hand, assisting her with the stretch as they pushed and pulled each other through the feel-good aches. She had thought about what she could do, what she might do, and she hadn’t done it even though she could have, even though it wouldn’t have been hard. Azula’s heart skittered underneath her rib bones because the same thoughts must have occurred to Ty Lee. Once, it wouldn’t have mattered if Ty Lee did indulge in that kind of fantasy because she wouldn’t do anything, of course she wouldn’t do anything, she would be too scared, but then she had done something.

She could always do something again.

“Tell me if this is too much,” Ty Lee said as she lifted Azula’s back leg so she could deepen the stretch.

“More,” Azula said, setting her teeth when Ty Lee complied. She held it for about thirty seconds, then pulled her limb even higher until she heard Azula’s sharp intake of breath and saw the shivering in her muscles.

“You’ve lost some,” Ty Lee said, running her free hand along her leg to smooth the twitches and the tremors away. “Did the person who helped you in my absence not do so well? Were they too afraid to push you as far as I did?”

Azula flinched, laboring for breath as the stretch seared her muscles. Ty Lee was right. She had lost some of her flexibility, trapped and cooped up as she had been in her room. She had tried to keep it, just like she had tried to keep her bending, just like she had tried to make her hair behave. “Maybe you’re the one’s who’s lost your touch. Maybe you’re too afraid to push back.”

“You know I’m not.” There was a sharp edge to Ty Lee’s voice as she pushed Azula’s leg up without the gentle ease of before.

Azula braced herself with her fists to the ground, not quite catching a whimper of pain before buttoning her lips shut, focusing instead on her breath in her stomach, the line of sweat running down her spine.

“Did you say something, Princess Azula?” Ty Lee asked, all sweetness as she kept pulling to deepen the stretch. 

She had heard, she had wanted to hear her make that noise again. In a life time of pushing Ty Lee to the ground when she bested Azula at tumbling—pushing her down to see her fall, to hear those small, tiny shreds of whimpers as she rubbed the spots where she had fallen the hardest—Azula knew, and her cheeks flushed red and high.

“I don’t understand you, Princess Azula,” Ty Lee whispered, letting her leg down a fraction of an inch so that relief flooded through Azula, and it was easier to breathe again, “it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to say you need something or someone.” Ty Lee deepened Azula's stretch again, and Azula’s fingers gripped and shredded the grass so that she would not whimper, until dirt was pressed up under her nails. “You don’t have to prove yourself all the time. I know you’re not above it all.” And, as if to punctuate Azula’s weakness, she pulled her leg farther than they had gone before, farther than when she had done this daily with Ty Lee, and this time, Azula grunted with the pain of it.

Then Suki’s voice broke through to them, broke the hard hold that Ty Lee gripped around her ankle, and Azula’s leg fell to the ground with a dull thud and an even duller ache. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Suki! I was just talking to Azula.”

Suki looked skeptical, but she held out her hand for Ty Lee to hold, and they walked down to the beach and the ocean. 

Azula wondered what they were saying to each other as they wandered so far. She missed the ears and eyes the Dai Li had once provided her.

“I’m surprised she takes the time,” Mai said. She was polishing and whetting her knives with her small stone.

“Shut up,” Azula said, her voice coming out sharp, but not sharp enough to disturbed Mai’s exterior, not even sharp enough to make Mai flinch.

“Who’s going to make me?” Mai raised her eyes. The knife in her hand glinted in the light. “You?”

Azula surged forward, hands already clenched, breath already settling low in her stomach as she found her root.

Mai sighed as she lounged into a fighting a stance. “Without your bending?” She languidly brought her knives in position, mirroring the exact stance she had used against Azula on that day.

“I once held off the Avatar and his gang alone during the eclipse,” Azula hissed. “I had no bending.”

“But you weren’t alone, were you, Azula?” Mai said. Her sallow face was pinched and bitter. “You took something of mine to that fight. You took it without asking when I still would have given it to you. It didn’t belong to you!”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. Perhaps you should enlighten me.”

“My knife,” Mai said. “You took one, and you never returned it.” She looked away.

Azula’s palm twitched as she remembered. She laughed, amused that Mai would be so upset about such a small thing. Of course she had taken it when Mai and Ty Lee had been arguing about her fondness for dark, gloomy robes, how Ty Lee’s pink made her nauseous with its unrelenting brightness. She had slipped it then, easy as anything, just as easy as it would have been to cut Sokka’s face, to give him a gift that would make even his beloved Suki turn away from him. The blind earthbender must have heard something though, because rock had hurled her off her feet, the pressure and force opening her hand so that the knife had clattered away somewhere.

Then the bending had come back, and there had been no need for knives.

“It was my knife. You could have asked for it. I would have said yes. Probably anyway.”

“Princesses don’t ask for things,” Azula said. “They take them.”

“I want it back,” Mai said. “I’m sure you have it on you somewhere.”

Azula smoothed her hair. “I don’t have it with me. I lost it because I didn’t need it.”

“Of course, you lost it.” Mai’s voice was dull and flat as it scraped through her teeth.

“I did.” Azula raised the pitch of her voice and tried on her most winning smile. “It slipped from my hand and I barely even noticed.”

Mai relaxed from her fighting stance, slid her knives back into her sleeves, and reclined against the porch as she lapsed into stony, flinty silence.

Azula brushed past her, but lingered in the doorway. “I’ve always found this place to be depressing—you’ll fit right in with the rest of the décor with a long face like that.”

She didn’t think Mai would have a response, so she didn’t wait for one. If Mai was predictable in anything, it was with her silence.


	2. Interlude: Ember Island

Coming to Ember Island was a family tradition. They came when the weather turned warm, when the sun was always hot and high in the sky, and when the ocean was always warm. Father told tales of his journeys to the North and Southern poles—how ice formed and how there was no such thing as swimming for pleasure, how people could die from the cold of those waters long before they drowned. There was no danger of freezing to death at Ember Island, of course.

Azula liked how the steam rose from the waters, especially near the hot mountains, the ones that always seemed to be waiting to erupt in fire and flame—ready to claim the world with red hot heat and then cold black stone, an immortalized scar.

The fringe of mountains surrounding Ember Island was beautiful. This was the time of year she looked forward to the most. She had told Mai and Ty Lee about it, about their home, about the water. Just way until you see it, she had said, because none of them had gone before. And then they couldn't come at all.

It was impossible to sleep when there was so much to look forward to, which was why she was already on the deck of their ship, even though morning was still just a glow on the horizon. Azula juggled balls of fire as she paced the deck of their father’s ship, waiting for Mom or Dad or Zuko to wake up their lazy bums and come out and do something fun or interesting or whatever.

If she had been allowed to bring Ty Lee or Mai, she wouldn’t be bored. They woke early and eager every day. But this had been Mom’s idea of a punishment after the incident at school so she hadn’t even been allowed to invite them to come. Azula scowled, and the fire flashed white with heat.

She laughed when the captain tried to tell her to stop, that she could burn the ship down and it would sink beneath the waves, drowning them all to their deaths. “I'm very skilled at what I do,” she assured him. “There’s no cause for alarm.”

He was weak and a coward, and let her be with barely concealed glares. When Azula added a fourth ball of fire, she figured she had maybe ten minutes before his fear of her overpowered his fear for her father.

She smiled when she saw him disappear below. She added another ball so that when Father came back up, after had finished punishing the captain for his impudence, he would see how clever she was with her bending, how skilled she was, and how the captain truly had nothing to fear.

If she desired to burn down the ship, it would be by her intention and not by careless accident.

“Azula?” It was her mother, and not her father the captain had fetched. He was lingering behind her, face relaxing a tiny fraction. Azula could scarcely believe he had chosen to go to her mother instead of her father because surely he must know that Ursa couldn’t bend, that she couldn’t stop Azula if Azula did not wish to stop. Azula almost laughed.

Still, she couldn’t help but look for her father beyond them. Maybe he waited in the shadows. Maybe he was just a little bit behind her. Maybe, he would still come.

The fire faltered for a moment, losing their shape as they hissed and smoked and sparked. Azula snuffed them out quickly even as Ursa flinched back. “Scared of a little fire, Mom?”

Ursa gestured for the captain to leave, and he did. “Azula—why are you doing this, alone without supervision? Do you have so little regard for the wellbeing of your family? For the lives of the crew?”

“I had it under control,” Azula said, smoothing her hair with her palms. “Didn’t you see?” Would it be so terrible for her mother to recognize her talent and skill? How many girls could do what she did? How many still struggled with even the most rudimentary firebending techniques? “It wasn’t even hard.”

She should be proud of her instead of telling her she shouldn’t do this or she shouldn’t do that like she was an incompetent child.

“That’s not the point, Azula. You have a responsibility to others to be safe with your bending—not to put people at risk.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “Nobody is in danger from me.”

“You were making the captain uncomfortable, Azula,” Ursa said. “This is his ship, and you need to listen to him. You need to respect him.”

Azula laughed. “I thought this was our ship? Doesn’t it have our insignia on it? The captain should be thrilled to be employed by us, to work on a ship as fine as this because it’s ours. Not his.”

“This ship is technically Firelord Azulon’s. But even so, it might not be the captain’s in name, but it is in every other way that matters. While he is captain, you must listen to him.”

Azula held her arms to her chest. “It should be our ship and not Grandfather’s. He never takes trips anymore. He’s too old and frail.”

“Why do you say such things?”

“Because they’re true. He never goes anywhere. He never says anything. He never does anything.” She leaned into her mother and smiled up at her. “He’s lost his fire even if he can still bend. But Dad hasn’t.”

“We’re not discussing this again.” Ursa’s voice was tight as she drew away from her daughter. "I feel like all our conversations end like this."

“But you know I’m right,” Azula said, still clinging to her mother’s hand. She wore her sleeves long, even though it was hot, and she wondered if she still bore those scars. Would she still wear long sleeves even when they landed on Ember Island, refusing to swim? Refusing to come out at all? Always, always hiding?

“You shouldn’t be worrying about this, Azula.”

“I’m not worried. I'm just looking forward to a time where we won't have problems. I'm being practical.”

“Your grandfather isn’t a problem to be solved,” Ursa said. “He’s family.”

“Just because someone is family doesn't mean that they can't be bad for you. That they can't hurt you. Even if they don't mean to. Even if it's an accident.” Azula held her mother’s gaze. She knew she was right. She knew what she had seen from before, the smoke twisting through her sleeve, when they were supposed to be drinking tea. She couldn't pretend that she didn't know what Azula was talking about. She couldn't pretend that she didn't know that this was the only way to make it better.

“You shouldn’t say such things, Azula.” But Ursa's eyes were on the sea and not on Azula. Her words were distant, like she didn’t mean them.

Azula stamped her foot and folded her arms. “I’m not afraid like you.” She hated being surrounded by all this water. Water didn’t burn unless the fire was hot enough to scorch it into air. One day, her fire would be hot enough to do that. She’d turn this giant sea into a desert crusted in salt.

“Who’s bad for you, Azula?”

“Nobody,” Azula said.

Ursa sighed.

Azula summoned more fire, trying to make the ball so tight and controlled that no flickering flames escaped, concentrating on making it so hot it’d flash white with a blue heart. But then she burned her palm, and let it go. “You should have let me bring Mai and Ty Lee along. It’s so boring here without them. Zuko is no fun at all.”

“From what I understand, you three are quite the terror at school. Maybe you need a break from each other.”

Azula rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious, Azula. You shouldn’t treat your classmates the way you do—or your friends. Mai and Ty Lee don’t deserve that. You can’t use them for your power plays.”

“My friends love the way I treat them. I make them feel special and important. I would have thought you'd say that's a good thing. I'm the best thing that's every happened to them.”

“I don’t believe you.” Ursa’s voice was quiet.

“I’m the only one who’s ever noticed them,” Azula protested. “They’d do anything for me.”

Azula didn’t recognize the expression in Ursa’s face when she turned towards her. “But would you do anything for them?”

“Why does that matter?”

Ursa looked down at Azula with her sad eyes and her sad face. “It just does.”

“But why?”

Ursa pinched the bridge of her nose as she bowed her head. “It matters because you need to expect the same things from yourself as you do your friends, otherwise you're just being selfish." She shook herself, as if she could separate herself from the discussion, brush it from her like dust. Then she smiled at Azula. "Why don’t you join me and your father and your brother in a few minutes? We’ll eat a little something, alright?”

And then she was gone, leaving Azula alone on the deck. The wind mussed her hair after she had so carefully combed it to perfection. “I don’t care,” Azula said. “I don’t.”

Azula did not go down to join the others, and they did not rejoin her on the deck. Instead, she paced a circle until one of the sailors shouted, and she saw Ember Island as a smudge on the horizon. They would be there in a few hours, and make themselves at home. Li and Lo had gone ahead of the family, as they always did, in order to prepare their house. The curtains had been lifted, the white coverings pulled from the furniture, and neatly folded away somewhere that was of no concern for Azula.

After they had landed, Azula raced towards their house, standing in front of the doors with her arms wide, her hands stretched out and striped by shadows, her fingertips blushing towards the sun. She breathed deeply, felt her chi flow through her, felt her breath in her stomach, waiting to be heated to flame that she might roar like a tigerdillo--and so she did.

Flame licked from her mouth, and she laughed.

“Azula!” Zuko said, appearing from behind her, with his face slack in awe. “Do that again!”

And Azula did, trying to get the flames even hotter so that it was perfect—not just almost perfect.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” 

“Why would I want to teach you?” Azula said, even though she was already kicking his feet into the proper position, her hands tapping his shoulders so they stood broad and free, opening his chest and stomach so that he could deepen his breath.

She resumed her own stance, and he mirrored her. “Because you’re the perfect teacher. No one else our age can do anything like it yet. No wonder Dad says you’re a prodigy.”

“You ready?” she said. “Are you watching carefully?” She breathed deep, tilted her head back, and roared. She steadied her breath with a downward motion of her palms before bowing to Zuko. “Now give it your best try.”

Zuko took several steadying breaths, but the way he held his body was so stiff he locked the air up in his lungs instead of guiding it to his stomach to stoke his fire, and she wasn’t surprised when just a wispy flame, surrounded by pale furls of smoke, escaped his lips.

“Father’s not going to be impressed with that,” Azula said.

Zuko turned and kicked the front door with his foot. “It always comes so easy to you!”

“Oh stop being such a baby,” Azula said, scowling, as she pulled him from the shadow their house cast and set him square in the sunlight again. “You don’t see me practicing because I’m up at twilight, waiting for the dawn. You’d know that firebenders rise with the sun, if you knew anything at all. I’ve been working on this for a long time,” she said, warm surges of pride rising through her like fire. “And it’s going to be perfect when we perform for father and show him how much we’ve learned. He’ll see my time at the Fire Nation Academy for Young Women hasn’t been wasted. He’ll be so proud of me. And you--if you're able to keep up.”

“Dad is already proud of you,” Zuko said, glowering. “I’ve heard what he’s said about you. It’s like you’re his only child.”

Azula kicked at a stone and pretended not to care, but her cheeks still flushed all the same.

Zuko slouched behind her. “He says you were born lucky.” He flopped to the ground, his fists shielding his eyes from the sun. "And that I was lucky to be born."

“Lucky?” She sat down beside him. “Lucky?” Her fingers flexed against her thigh before nervously combing through the hair that framed her face. “I practice hard every day to be who I am.” Her eyes shifted side to side as she considered the sunlight falling on the beach, the sparkle of the ocean blinding her sight. Lucky. Her mouth twisted against her teeth. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand anything!

“It’s so easy for you,” Zuko said. “There’s no denying that. You’re just. You’re just better. You get things more quickly. It’s like you already know something instead of nothing.”

“But I work hard to be perfect. It’s not lucky—it’s—“

“It’s getting up with the sun?”

“Yes,” Azula said. “It is.”

Zuko was silent, until his foot nudged hers. “He still likes you better. Your bending. It’s the only time he smiles.”

Azula folded her arms tight across her chest. “That’s not good enough.”

“It’s more than he’s ever said about me,” Zuko said. “Nothing I do will make Dad happy with me. And I don’t know why.”

Azula rolled her eyes. Of course Zuko didn’t understand what was going on right in front of them. Of course he wouldn’t understand the way his father, his uncle, his family interacted and how it would affect them in turn. That’s why—that’s why everything would be better when their father became Firelord. Zuko would be his heir, and his father would look at Zuko like that, in that way that Zuko craved, and everyone would be happy and strong.

But to be Firelord, to take over after their father, Zuko would have to be a better bender. Only the greatest benders were Firelords, which was another reason why Father deserved to be the Firelord over their Uncle Iroh. Dragon of the West--ha!

Father had never been given a chance to prove his worth now that the dragons were all gone. It wasn’t fair.

Zuko couldn’t be stuck in the same position when the time came.

“Azula?” Zuko said, tugging at her sleeve.

She jerked her arm away. She wasn’t done thinking yet.

“Azula, what’s going on?” He was leaning against her, concerned for her, like any big brother would be. She stared at him for a moment. Big brother. Sometimes it seemed the other way around.

“Shut up, and listen to me. We’re going to train together, you and me, and we’re going to show father that you're a—“ she couldn’t say a great bender because nobody was as great as she—“a bender that he can be proud of.” Someone whom he wouldn’t be ashamed to name his heir, when the time came.

“You’d do that for me?”

Azula smiled at him. “Of course I’d do that for you. Isn’t that what brothers and sisters are supposed to do?” Maybe Mom would look at her like she was a person instead of something to be stopped if she saw Azula helping Zuko. Maybe she’d sit with her at the turtle-duck pond. Maybe she’d pull her in close, like she’d seen her do with Zuko when they were walking, their hands slipped together. She’d kiss Azula's forehead, her hands framing her face, and she’d tell her what a good sister she’d been to her brother, and that she was proud of her, and that she loved her. Azula swallowed hard and looked back at Zuko, who stared at the green grass at his feet, at the smudge of green stain on his red boots as he bit his lips. “What’s wrong, dum-dum? Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I just—“ Zuko sighed, covering his eyes with his hands. “I just think that Dad should already be proud of me. Like I’m here, and I’m his son. That’s enough for Mom. Why not for Dad?”

Azula scoffed. “Mom doesn’t like you just because you’re her son. If that were true she’d treat me like you but she doesn’t. She sees something in you that Dad doesn’t see—she likes how kind and soft you are. Lose that, you lose her pride, her love. Dad needs somebody tough and strong that can follow in his footsteps.”

“Someone like you,” Zuko said.

“You think I’m tough and strong, big brother?” Azula wondered if he’d heard their parents discussing her exploits at school with her elite cohort of friends. She hoped he had.

“I can’t imagine anybody tearing you down,” Zuko said. He pulled her hand in his, and clutched her fingers until her bones hurt. “But Mom loves you too, Azula. I know she does.”

She pried her hand out of his and pushed him hard so that he fell over, landing hard on his shoulder. “Azula! What was that for?”

“Weren’t you listening? You have to toughen up.” She got to her feet and pulled her brother up after her. “We start at dawn tomorrow. Don’t be late—you know how I hate waiting, and the sun waits for no one.”

She needed air to breathe—space to think. It would be easier if Mai and Ty Lee were here. She could talk to them, and they would keep her secrets because they wanted the same things Azula did. But her mother hadn’t allowed them to come, and their absence made her flesh itch, made her acutely aware of the skin on her hands, the way the salt from the ocean still managed to land on her, blown in from the wind; how her hair, only brushed and brushed and brushed again, was tangled by that same breeze; how heavy her clothes were even though she wore a simple, light tunic edged with gold flame.

She swung towards the beach, grass whisper-soft under her feet. She needed to comb her hair, stroke after stroke reaching from the top of her head to the last fluttering ends in a single movement. She needed the scrape of the fine ivory comb inlaid with jade pulling her back into her skin so that it fit her comfortably once more.

Ty Lee did it just right, with just the right amount of force, going harder when Azula told her to. Li and Lo never listened when she asked them to comb it right. They just shook their heads, and told her they had combed the heads of many princesses, and they knew how to do it just fine.

She rolled her eyes. Those women thought she was so fragile, what did they know? They were the fragile ones. She could burn the flesh off their bones if she chose to and they could do nothing to stop her.

She heard voices as she approached the beach, and so she slipped a little closer to the ground, hugging the ridge of rocks that reached towards the sea. The rough surface scraped her skin, leaving fine, red scratches across her cheek.

It was her mother, and it was Li and Lo. They lounged in the shadow of an umbrella, and Ursa held a bouquet of fire lilies in her hands while Li, sitting on her left, plucked the red petals until their laps were graced with their tattered remains.

Azula could smell the bruised blossoms from where she hid, and she pressed her palm against her mouth and nose to keep from sneezing. Then she thought it wasn't fair--if her mother had found her doing that she would have told her to stop. But now, she said nothing.

“We are very concerned for Azula’s well being,” Li said after she had plucked the last flower and all that remained were green stems.

Azula bit her lip as she watched and listened. She hated how they always talked about her when she wasn’t there. It wasn’t fair.

“Azula is—“ Ursa began, licking her teeth with her tongue—“as she always is and has always been and will always be.”

Li and Lo exchanged a glance over Ursa's head, their mouths turned down unhappily.

“Azula has changed,” Lo said.

“She is deeply troubled,” Li said.

Azula would have raspberried behind the rocks if she had wanted to betray her position—but she wanted to hear more.

“She has always been—something’s always been wrong with that child,” Ursa said, letting the stems drop from her hand. “She’s sneaky. She’s greedy. She’s cruel. She hurts the turtle-ducks, and I believe she is beginning to hurt people at the school. It's like she's a little monster. I am deeply concerned for Mai and Ty Lee.”

“She never used to do such things,” Li said, hand tentative on Ursa’s shoulder.

“She has always had the capability of it—I saw, even when she was a baby. She didn’t cry, and she was bending before she could crawl. She would burn the green leaves, laughing delightedly and showing them to me, these charred, burned things that left ash on my hands. She had no regard for them—for their beauty. Just like she has no regard for anything or anyone.” She bowed her head. “Perhaps it was my fault. I never wanted a second child, but—Ozai insisted.”

Azula stiffened in the bushes after she heard those words. Her fingers reached for the fringe of her hair, straightening it so that it was perfect, so that she was perfect in every way.

“But Azula is a beautiful girl,” Li crooned. “You should be proud of her.”

“Sometimes she says things.” Ursa stared into her lap, her teeth biting into her lip. “Sometimes she says things, and I don’t know where they came from. They are thoughts that would not occur to me. Or to Zuko.”

“She is just a child,” Lo said. “She doesn’t know what she says.”

“She says things like Ozai says.” Ursa’s hand crept over her sleeve, holding the place where Ozai had touched her. "And she means them, like he does."

Azula’s chest went tight.

“It isn’t surprising,” Lo said, combing her fingers through her mother’s hair. “She is her father’s daughter. It’s only natural for children to look up to their parents, and to speak as they do. After all, doesn’t Zuko speak your words?”

Azula rolled her eyes. It’s why Zuko was so soft, not tough like her or like father. They’d never survive without people like them.

“I wish she spoke like me,” Ursa said. “I wish I looked into her face and saw myself somewhere there.”

“You are there,” Li and Lo said together. “Azula loves you very much. We see it every time she looks at you or speaks of you. Every time she bends we can see it."

Ursa looked up with a smile that did not grace her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Of course we’re sure,” Li and Lo said, each one of them patting one of Ursa's cheeks.

There was a pause where Ursa searched their faces, as if she did not believe them, and Azula figured she had little reason to. Azula had often suspected that Li and Lo would sometimes lie. They were old crones who had lived in the palace since their youth. They knew the right words to say, the right words to protect them, those lying old women. 

Azula coughed and scrambled over the ridge of rocks, landing in the soft sand as it ploofed over her shoes. “What sort of secrets are you whispering together?” She stepped lightly on her feet as she went closer to the three of them. “Can you tell me?”

“Not everything is palace intrigue, Azula,” Ursa said heavily, shadowing her eyes with her hand. “Why can’t you ask about things other children ask about? Ask us if we’re going out today, if we will treat you to sugared fruit, or if you can play in the water until the sun sets.”

Azula smiled at her. “But I already know I can have those things, that I can do those things. I don’t have to ask about things I already know.”

“So you knew that we were going to see the Ember Island Players?” Ursa said, her lip curling.

Li and Lo exchanged a glance over Ursa's head. They were surprised. There had been no such plans. Ursa had made it up, right there, on the spot.  

“Do not forget about the portrait that Lord Ozai has arranged to be painted later this afternoon,” Li and Lo said softly.

“We can do both,” Ursa said. “There will be time for both activities.”

Something tense thrilled deep in Azula's stomach, in the place where she centered her bending. Her skin thrummed with it, sparking and cackling like lightening. Mom was trying to break her root, to decenter her. To surprise her. It was a game, a duel of words since Mom couldn’t bend at all. Azula could do that, too, and she stepped forward delightedly, her hands clasped behind her back. “We go see the Players every year. Of course we would go this year as well. Though I can’t imagine why we bother—it’s not as if they’re talented. I could put on a better show in my sleep.”

“Just make sure you’re ready to go,” Ursa said as her eyes closed. “The painter will be here soon.”

Azula took it as a concession of defeat. “I am always punctual, but I’ll be sure to pass the message to Zuko.” Azula turned to go, but then looked back. Ursa had lifted her head, eyes locked on her. “Love you, Mom.”

Ursa’s mouth dropped slightly. Did Azula imagine the way her breath caught in a tiny gasp as her eyes widened? Azula listed the questions she could be thinking: how much had Azula heard, how much did she know, what would she say, to whom would she say it?

Azula waited for her mother to say something, to say anything, but she did not. So Azula left before the silence between them grew too long and too heavy, and she scowled as she did.


	3. Nothing Is Simple

The knife was gone, according to Azula. But Azula always lied.

Unless the truth would hurt more.

Maybe the knife was still in the underground tunnels, where the Firelord had taken refuge—the one guarded with a pit of lava that wouldn’t pose a problem for a bender but for someone like Mai—

The downward pull of her mouth weighed heavily on her. Azula was right in that it was just a knife, nothing special about it, just one in a long line of ones that Mai used for skill, for violence, for the calming motion of turning it over and over, whetting her precision and her persistence.

Azula had taken one and lost it because she did not care for something so small and inconsequential as one of Mai’s things.

Mai got up after Azula had left her behind on the steps, and wandered down the path Ty Lee and Suki had taken. Suki should not have come with them. She interfered, a presence that didn’t so much douse a fire as let it smolder and burn.

Mai caught up with them on the beach. They had stripped out of their things (neatly folded on the sand), and they splashed in the water, laughing like they were on vacation, like they were happy.

They noticed her frowning soon enough. Suki quickly abandoned Ty Lee, surging through the low waves and the warm water. “Where’s Azula?” she called.

Mai shrugged, and Suki pushed past her, still wet as she wrung out her short hair. “We can’t leave her alone, not for a moment—she cannot escape!”

“We could all go home if she did,” Mai said.

Ty Lee sighed, dramatically. “It was your idea to come, Mai. We're in this together.” She twisted water from her braid. “Why are you so unconcerned?”

“Because I’m not her jailer,” Mai said. “And because this idea was stupid anyway. I can’t believe Zuko agreed to it.” She couldn’t believe she had encouraged him to agree. She knew it would be unpleasant being with Azula, but she hadn’t been expecting it to be like this. In her head, she had imagined she would handle Azula being Azula much better than she actually was. She had not imagined it would be so hard, that it would hurt so much.

“You're just having regrets," Ty Lee said. She went back into the water, started to splash around like she was some kid trying to get her wet. Mai stepped carefully out of reach of her antics. "The water will wash your negative energy away! We'll come back refreshed, ready to try again with Azula. I still believe we can be friends, once we figure everything else out. I know it won't be the same, but I also know that it will be better. We just need to give ourselves time.”

Mai felt the familiar bitterness pucker her mouth. “Azula was never our friend. Friends don’t steal each other’s things and then lose them without even realizing the thing was lost.”

“Azula will be our friend like she was once, a long time ago,” Ty Lee said. Her smile was fixed on her face, her breathing shallow. “Why else are we here if not to heal together? We talked about this, Mai.”

“Friends don’t put each other in jail,” Mai said. “Friends don’t put apples on their heads and then see if they can burn it and only it. Friends don’t push you down when you’ve done something better. She was never our friend. She never will be.”

Ty Lee came out of the water and walked towards Mai so she could slip her wet hand in hers, pulling her close. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt.” Mai didn’t pull Ty Lee closer but she didn’t try pushing her away either. "I’m just telling the truth. You shouldn’t be so nice to her. I don’t understand why you are. This is exactly what she wants.”

“I'm nice because I'm a nice person. That's who I am! But just because I'm nice doesn't mean I'm stupid." Ty Lee scoffed, shaking her head so that her braid flung water into Mai's face. "Azula always had you fooled, and herself fooled, but never me.”

Mai looked at Ty Lee then. “Fooled about what?”

Ty Lee tugged at Mai’s robes. “Take this off, and come in the water with me.”

“No,” Mai said. “Tell me.”

“I’ll tell you when you’re in the water with me.” Ty Lee’s eyes were bright and soft as her fingers curled in the cloth of Mai’s sleeve. “Your aura is always so gloomy, but it’s gotten thunderous ever since we started this journey. The water will help, I promise.”

Mai rolled her eyes, but complied. She let Ty Lee help lift her clothes over her head until she stood shivering, bare toes curled in the sand. Ty Lee pulled her into the water, already warming under the rising sun. She pulled her deeper and deeper, until she had to tread water to keep afloat. “Tell me, Ty Lee.”

Ty Lee pulled herself so that she floated on her back, hands resting on her belly, legs kicking languidly. “She fooled herself into thinking that we needed her,” she said. “That we needed her to be somebody. I remember you—the poor sad kid standing in the shadows, bored and wanting something to distract you from looking inwards. Azula was an arresting distraction. She gave us what we thought we wanted. She was so insulted when I rejoined the circus because I didn’t need station or riches to keep my aura pink.” Her voice turned so quiet that Mai had to strain to hear her over the whispers of the water. “She threatened to burn it down and me with it because I didn’t need what she offered anymore. Just like you didn’t really need the opportunity to rebel against your parents because you did it every time you flipped your knife and said nothing even when they wanted you to speak. You don’t need Azula to be happy because you’re never happy, and she was maybe the first person who recognized that in you, but she wasn’t the last was she?”

Mai’s mouth twisted as she chewed on her lip.

“I’ve known this ever since she let me win because she needed me to think that I was indebted to her. But the real truth, Mai, is that she needs us more than we need her. It’s always been like that. Why do you think she always surrounds herself with nonbenders? She’s just—“ and here Ty Lee giggled and the water spilled over her stomach as she struggled to keep afloat—“she’s just an incredibly good liar. Especially when she's lying to herself.”

“If you knew all that then why did you deal with it?”

“She’s a princess of the Fire Nation,” Ty Lee said. “She’s always had more power than us—in more ways than one. But I knew I could take at least one part of her power away if I ever needed to. Not the power she had to throw us in prison or the power to shoot lightening at us, but I knew the realization that we didn't need her like she needed us would destroy her.” Ty Lee let herself fall into the water so that she could look Mai in the eyes. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”

Mai shook her head. “I don’t get it. Maybe I'm not as sure about Azula as you, but I still don't understand why you care so much.”

Ty Lee faltered for the first time. She sucked on her lips and ducked her head under the water, resurfacing behind Mai so that she could press her palm into the curve of her spine and dip her until it was Mai who was floating on her back, skimming the surfaces of the ocean. The water lapped into Mai’s ears, carrying the soft trill of Ty Lee’s voice. “It’s nice to be needed. That someone so powerful like Azula could be so weak, and could need so much, the fire of that need directed towards me, towards you.” She shook her head, her eyes closed. "And it won't be the same, Mai. Nothing will ever be the same again, but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. Just--different friends in a different way. I care because no matter what, Azula will always be a part of our lives, even if we say goodbye to her and to everything we had, to everything we could have together. I have to try."

“If you’re not careful, Azula’s going to hurt you again.”

“It’s like a dance, isn’t it? All our fights are just that, a dance. She lashes out, and I cower. When she’s not looking, I touch her there—“ Ty Lee’s fingers drifted to the same spot on Mai’s side that she had jabbed in that terrible moment at the prison, and Mai’s flesh shivered—“and she falls, unable to bend, wondering how this could be, how this could happen. She lashes out again, and I duck around her, offering her a kindness. She turns away and I turn with her and we're side by side, looking at each other. It's power, I think. Not the power of a princess, but it's enough to bring Azula to her knees."

“So this is just a field trip to see how far Azula will humiliate herself?” Mai had been humiliated by Azula many times—it was a running theme in the family, humiliation. Zuko himself bore the scar of it—and it was something that both tempted her and repelled her. She remembered, again, the thrills she felt when she witnessed Azula humiliating a hapless victim, how glad she had been to see it. Guilt settled low in her stomach, and she sighed.

“No,” Ty Lee was saying. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Then what?”

Ty Lee closed her eyes, and fell back into the water so that she floated beside Mai. “I don't know. I just know that it's not the same. And that things will be different. I need Azula to know that it will never go back to what it was before. That she can never have the power over us that she had before. But once she knows that, once she understands, we can be friends once this is over. Not the games we play, but real friendship.”

“It’ll never happen,” Mai said. “And maybe you can give her that second chance, but I can’t. I'm only here for Zuko.”

“That’s okay,” Ty Lee whispered. “I never asked you to. We can still be friends, can’t we, even if I want to be friends with Azula too?”

“Of course, we can,” Mai said, closing her eyes against a too-bright sun.

Ty Lee wrapped her hands around Mai’s wrists and tugged her back towards the shore. “It's such a small word, friendship. I don't think there's a word that exists that can describe what I think about you or Azula or the three of us together.”

Wet beach and sand scraped against Mai’s back as the waves helped push them towards the shore. Ty Lee blocked the sun as she leaned over Mai, hair on either side of her head, surf leaving bubbles against their skin. The wet rope of her braid, tie lost in the water, unraveled, dripped over everything, and Mai shivered as a warm breeze dried the water left on her.

Goosebumps followed its path, and she wished for a towel, a blanket, or to return to the house where it wasn’t so bright and the breeze could not pass beyond the walls.

“We should go back,” Mai said.

Ty Lee stood up and offered her hand to Mai. “That sounds like a great idea.”

Mai took the proffered hand and allowed Ty Lee to brush the sand off her before returning the favor.

“I’m kind of glad that Azula decided to take us to Ember Island,” Ty Lee said, slipping her hand in Mai’s. “Li and Lo were right—it’s a magical place, a place of healing, of scraping off every last bit of negative energy and letting the water take it away. It’s like the world stands still in this bubble of peace.”

“Nothing is as peaceful as wrecking someone's house.”

Ty Lee laughed merrily at that. “They deserved it.”

"I don't hate it here," Mai said. "But I don't want to stay."

“I don’t think we’ll be here much longer,” Ty Lee said. “Just until Azula decides she can’t give us the slip.”

“I almost hope she does.”

“Would you go after her?” Ty Lee said, “or would you go back to the palace?”

Mai considered. She had followed Azula for so long—it would be like falling back into a familiar march to follow her again, just as she had feared. She shook her head. But Ty Lee was right, it wouldn't be the same. If Azula did run, they would be chasing her, not following her. She could put her hands in Azula's perfect hair, wrench her back, and tell her no, she couldn’t just leave, she couldn’t just use them again and leave—and she’d be able to do it this time without being burned, without being told to sit still, without being told to be silent, without needing Ty Lee to rescue her again. “I’d go after her,” Mai said.

Ty Lee smiled at her, hands clenched over her heart. “I’m so glad we’re friends.”


	4. Games They Play

The inside of what had once been their summer house looked as if there had been a fight of some kind. Scorch marks, similar to burns left by her brother’s work, blackened what had once been the finest paper, made with silver and gold thread. Chairs and other furniture had been knocked away and toppled over—maybe from airbending. She couldn’t tell who won, and if some of the damage was caused by airbending, it didn’t really make sense. She had seen both Zuko and Aang embrace as friends, hadn’t she?

Maybe there hadn’t been a winner in this fight, and if that were the case, then what had been the point?

Azula rolled her eyes, skipping the rooms where she and Zuko had once slept, the kitchen with nothing but stale spices and moldering rice, the room with the low table where they had eaten their cakes and drunk their tea. Instead, she went directly towards her parents’ chambers, going quickly to get this over with. At least what had happened yesterday didn't seem to be happening again. Not yet, anyway.

Thick scarlet draperies hung from the windows, and the bed, vast enough for two people to sleep side by side without touching, took up the corner of the room. Red veils, more cobweb than thread, fluttered from the corners. The gold filigree, emblazing fire emblems on the wood, was tarnished and old, smudged with dust, dirt, and age.

It was hard to breathe here: the cloistered walls rose above her, and everything felt so much smaller than she remembered. She forced her breaths to come in a steady rise and fall as she bent over a chest that held what remained of value to their family. There were family portraits inside, but she didn’t look at them, putting them aside because they couldn’t possibly tell her where Mom could have gone upon her exile.

But where could she have gone? She had no allies outside the Fire Nation, and her father and the events surrounding Azulon’s death, the passing of the crown to Ozai instead of to Uncle Iroh, would have caused too much fear for anyone to dare help her.

How closely would Ozai have spared men to make sure she stayed away? Had he given her a ship as he had done for Zuko? Had she slipped out into the night on foot?

Azula lifted a painting of her mother. She was cradling someone—a baby, Zuko beside her, holding her hand, his head tipped up, trying to look at the baby’s face.

She almost didn’t recognize Zuko without his scar. She put her fingertips over his left cheek, tracing where it would have been if he were here with her now.

She figured that the baby Mom was holding was her, shortly after she was born, perhaps. She held her in one hand, while the other held Zuko. She held Azula distantly—not far enough away as to endanger her, but just enough that it didn’t look as if she were being really held—merely supported so that she would not fall.

Azula crumpled the canvas and tossed it away.

Maybe Zuko had had the right idea to burn it, burn it all.

That was crazy. That was usually her idea, not his. What was happening to her?

She searched until the box was empty, until she found the bottom with the velvet worn thin, eaten by age and dust and bugs. If there had been anything here, it had been taken by Zuko or pilfered by looters who dared to root around in the secondary home of Firelord Ozai. How dare they.

Azula closed her eyes. Her knees ached from sitting so long, and she leaned back to relieve the pressure and the pain. She had hoped her mother’s comb would still be there. It was made of ivory inlaid with jade in the shape of teardrops. Mom had combed her hair with it, had combed Azula’s hair with it, preparing her for matters of state or just making sure she was presentable, like a princess should be.

One hundred strokes she would comb until it was perfect, until her hair was the most beautiful.

But it was gone now, just like Mom was gone.

She climbed back to her feet, brushing the dirt from her knees, and rubbing the aches from her muscles. She found Suki outside, back leaned against the wall, watching her like a guard watched her prisoner. How things did change. “We’re leaving,” Azula said.

“Did you find anything?” Suki asked.

“Nothing. We’re going to Ba Sing Se.”

“As tourists?” Suki’s lip curled. “Or as Kyoshi Warriors?”

Azula’s step hitched as she held herself very still with her head very high. “I did something no other high minded general had accomplished. I did it when I was fourteen years old, a mere girl. We did it alone and outnumbered. It was a major tactical victory.” Until her uncle had taken it away with his treachery, had poisoned her brother against her.

Suki stepped in front of her, looming over her in a weak attempt to crowd her back, filling her vision so that the only way Azula could escape her gaze would be to close her eyes, which would never happen. So Azula held her breath, and stared unflinchingly at Suki and waited. “You didn’t do it alone, though,” Suki was saying. “And I’m not talking about Mai and Ty Lee. I’m talking about us. I’m talking about me. You used our faces, you used our clothes, and you used the trust you knew the Earth King would have given to the Kyoshi Warriors. So don’t pat yourself on the back.”

Azula shoved Suki out of her way. “I used the tools at my disposal.”

“You used us!" Suki repeated. Her cheeks were tinged red, and Azula took secret satisfaction from that.

“It’s not my fault you were too weak to defeat us. You outnumbered us two to one, at least. We should have been an easy victory if you were as skilled as you think you are!”

“You had no right to be in the Earth Kingdom,” Suki hissed. “You had no right to be there, with us, fighting that day. You had no right tracking Appa—you had no right!”

Azula turned away from her. “So I took it. Just like my father took anything he ever wanted. It's what those born to rule to do. You'd understand if you were like me but you're just some peasant from a poor village with delusions of grandeur. ”

“And is that who you want to be like, you father? The person who abused your brother and then attempted to murder a twelve year old boy? The person who abandoned you?”

Azula’s step shuddered, but she pulled herself up, tightening her muscles in her core—not letting herself hear. Suki followed her, mouth curved downwards, eyes hard, muscles twitching and shivering. Suki was a warrior—she wanted to lash out, and Azula almost hoped she would—she hadn’t had a real fight since her humiliation at Katara’s hands. The shame still burned in her belly, but she could never goad it into flame. Azula curled her lip into a sneer before turning back towards Suki when she stepped onto the warm green grass, hands folded loosely over her hips, knuckles grazing the sharp edges of her bones. “Do you want to fight me? We can’t do an Agni Kai of course, because you’re not a firebender, but—“

“And neither are you anymore!”

“But it could be fun to settle this once and for all. Aren’t you bored, following me around like you've got nothing better to do? Not that you actually do, of course.”

Suki drew back, shaking her head. “I don’t need to prove anything to you. You’re the one who needs to prove yourself to me.”

Azula tipped her head back and laughed. “What do I need to prove to you? I conquered your precious Kingdom. I defeated you and your warriors. I am a princess of the Fire Nation and who are you? I have nothing to prove to you.”

Suki pulled up short, her hand hiding her face even as her shoulders sagged. “You have a lot to prove, Azula. You have to prove that your desire to restore your honor is genuine—no one believes that’s what you really want to do. We know you’re going to ditch us the moment you think it’s safe to do so—safe from us, safe from Avatar Aang, safe from your brother. The only reason you wait is because you don’t want to be publicly humiliated again, brought back as a prisoner to your own palace, to be held in your own jail cell as your father. The only reason Zuko let you come is because he believes in second chances—because he was given more than one by the Avatar. I don’t know what will happen to you if this mission fails and you continue on as you have done, but I know you will not be given another chance. This is it, Azula. Why are you so intent on wasting it?”

Azula’s skin flared, flushed and hot, and she stepped towards Suki. “I’m hearing a lot of ultimatums from someone who doesn’t get a say about what happens to me. But I’m not like darling Zuzu—everyone was so eager to give him a second chance, and then another second chance, and then another and another. Why, every time he made a mistake, there was someone offering him a second chance, offering him mercy, offering him forgiveness.” Except for one person. But Suki didn't need to know about that. Azula's smile twisted around her cheeks. “If only I could be so lucky, but it’s a good thing I don’t need it.” She stopped, the words seared against her tongue, her teeth, hands twisting knots in her clothes and reaching deeper for her skin, to twist and pull until she could find the smoldering embers of her bending and stoke it back to life. "I've worked hard to be who I am, and that's made me strong."

Suki sighed. The anger had spent itself. “I don’t know why you’re resisting so hard when we’re just trying to help you.”

Azula’s breath hitched in her chest, caught against her ribs, never quite making it to her mouth. Dizziness and lightness fuzzed her vision, and she stumbled as her ankle twisted beneath her weight, throwing her off balance. Her heart wrenched as her limbs fell into the habits and patterns she had knit together, back when she had once trusted her body, trusting it to save her even when she was tricked by her enemy, as Aang had once tried to trick her into falling to her doom when they had first met, before enemies and friends had joined against her. Traitors! But her body had saved her then too, the body she’d forged from fire and steel. Now her limbs were tired, weak and trembling with something that itched and burned under her skin. Her ankle ached. “Only weak people need help,” Azula said. “Are we’re going to Ba Sing Se, or would you rather spend the rest of our days talking about it like we’re friends?”

When Suki had nothing to say to that, they went back to the beach to fetch Ty Lee and Mai, who were together in the surf. Azula watched them, bitterness twisting inside, as she watched them rise and come towards them, hand in hand. They went back to the boat, and set sail, and Azula watched Ember Island disappear.

The trip to Ba Sing Se would not be easy, it would not be quick.

When Azula woke in the morning to the swaying of the ship on the waves, she fingered the knots, hard as stones themselves, that had knit together between her shoulders as she had slept, exhausted at the end of every day. The wind chapped her skin, scabbing her knuckles over until they split red and raw, making it difficult for her to flex her fingers without bloodying them, even though it had been too long since had thrown a physical blow. She rubbed balm into them to ease the pain and discomfort.

Ty Lee cared for Mai’s hands, pulling her long gloves off, warming a little balm with her palms cupped close before smoothing it into Mai’s skin in small circles. Ty Lee’s fingers were long, delicate, nimble as she massaged each of Mai’s fingers, her thumbs lingering around her knuckles, rubbing up towards her wrist until she rubbed new life into them, pushing the blue flush of cold into one that turned red and rosy.

Azula scoffed in disgust as she turned away.

She missed when they had traveled before. True, she had abandoned the royal procession in favor of a small, elite team, but they hadn't been reduced to four dirty girls with blistered hands, ragged garments, and tempers striking against each other like spark rocks as they complained about how Mai always burned the rice, how Ty Lee was always too cheerful, how Mai’s perpetual frowning made everything that much harder to bear, how they would not even be in this position if it were not for Azula.

“Go back home if you want,” Azula said, spreading her arms wide. “I assure you, I am not stopping you.”

There would be silence, and they would never take her up on it. They would start working together, at least for a time. They were afraid to let her go by herself. No matter how much she egged them on, they would never leave of their own volition.

Suki always took charge at the end of the day. It nettled Azula, though there was little she could do about it, so she waited.

“Mai, food—“ even though Suki knew Mai didn’t do it right. “Ty Lee, water. Azula and myself will build the fire for the rice.” Azula soured, flexing her fingers, still unable to bend fire, still betraying her with their uselessness.

Suki did this on purpose. Never letting her go by herself to do anything, always making sure she was the one who tended the fire. It was a taunt, a low blow, and one day, Azula would make her pay.

Suki struck the spark rocks three times before they lit, and together Suki and Azula coaxed it to consume the damp fuel with their hot breaths. Mai began to cook their rice in the water that Ty Lee brought to boil while Suki prepared the tea and Azula tended the fire, stoking here, and tossing fuel there, making sure it received enough air to truly live but not enough to completely wipe out the newborn flames.

It must have been like this with her brother and the Avatar, Azula thought. Zuko, standing stationary, while the Avatar, the last airbender, gave him breath, making him burn as brightly or as fiercely as he willed.

“Azula,” Mai said.

She should have seen it earlier.

She should have seen it in his eyes as Zuko made his final choice in Ba Sing Se—to stand beside her or to stand against her. Even then it hadn’t been about her or their father, but about the Avatar, about his honor.

“Azula,” Mai said again.

She spread her hands, palms close over the fire. Lightening had come from her, had shot the Avatar, a boy only a little younger than her. Why had she tried to kill him? Sometimes it felt as if she remembered the moments before and after, and sometimes it felt like she didn't. What had she been thinking in that scarce space of time? She didn't know. She closed her eyes, and considered again what had happened. There had been a great light coming from the Avatar. She had been standing still, watching. Then the light cracked around him, through him. Smoke twisted from her two fingers, and she smiled as the Avatar fell because they had won, because her father would be so proud, because she had done what Zuko could not, because people died in wars all the time--she had known this even when she was small.

But then he had come back, like so many had never come back.

No wonder her father had been so angry with her.

“Azula,” Mai said, and this time she kicked at Azula’s foot with her own, and Azula snatched her hands—warm and dry and cracked like cured leather—away from the fire, to take the steaming bowl of singed rice that Mai had prepared for them.

She accepted as Mai let her hands fall away, so that the bowl fell into Azula’s palms as opposed to her taking it from Mai. The bowls were small and hands could so easily brush against each other. What a terrible thing to happen, that they should accidentally touch.

Ty Lee sat beside Azula, the fire flushing her skin orange so that it looked like she might have an aura if those things actually existed. “What were you thinking about, Princess Azula?” she asked, her chin braced on her fists, legs crossed at the knee, a smile hovering around her lips.

Azula blinked at the fire, Ty Lee’s voice trilling in her ear. Princess Azula, Princess Azula, Princess Azula. “You know, the usual things. Dominating the world, humiliating our enemies. Things we used to do all the time together, you and me and Mai. I suppose that leaves you as one of our humiliated enemies, Suki.” Azula smiled at her.

Suki ignored her words, but Mai put her bowl of rice down on her knees and glared. It was a small precise gesture, like the way she folded her hands in her robe or flicked her knives. Azula looked, narrow-eyed, at her. Was she fingering her knives at this moment? Would she leave her mark on Azula? A scar over her eye, a slip of the knife scarring her perfect skin, a tug of her wrist breaking the bone, deforming it? Azula clenched her teeth together, her hands combing the snarled mess of her hair, tugging and pulling until pain lanced her scalp and the muscles in her fingers seized.

Mai said, “The Fire Nation isn’t like that anymore. I'm not like that anymore.”

“We cannot change our nature,” Azula said. “You sound more like my brother than Mai.” The girl she once had known.

Ty Lee rose to her feet, fluttering between going to Mai or returning to Azula’s side. She dropped to her knees between them instead, her arms held out to each of them, as if she were offering peace to one on the other’s behalf. “And sometimes,” Ty Lee said, “we turn mean because we’ve been hurt for too long when we were too young—but we’re safe now. We don’t have to be like this anymore.”

Azula laughed. She set her bowl of rice at her feet, still untouched, so that her hands, so eager to betray her with their jittery shaking would not give her away. “I already told you—I don’t have sob stories like all of you. No one ever hurt me.”

Ty Lee opened her mouth, but Mai’s voice cut in first. “Zuko told me about you. Told me that Katara chained you to your knees, twisting your arms double behind your back so your chi was blocked. That fire spewed helplessly and uselessly from your mouth.” Mai glanced up then. “That you sobbed and sobbed at the humiliation of your defeat.” Mai sighed, then took a small bite of rice. “I wish I would have been there to see it.”

“Mai,” Ty Lee said, reproachfully. “Leave her alone.”

“Why should I?” Mai looked at the fire, her hands cradling the bowl of rice, no longer steaming. “After causing so many other people to cry, you finally did yourself. After pushing so many people down, even Ty Lee, you finally fell down yourself." Mai looked at Ty Lee then. "Of course I would want to see something like that."

Azula latched onto Mai’s words, scrabbled after them with her worn fingernails. “Why? Because even in my defeat, I’m still not like you, am I, Mai? For so long, I was everything, I consumed your thoughts and I consumed your waking moments, and I was the whole world to you—I wasn’t even human, I wasn’t even a person, I was Azula, a name whispered in fear. Even now my defeat is just another story looming over you, haunting you because you can’t believe it until you see it. But you never will.” Azula settled her limbs, crossing her legs at the knee, eyes sharp on Mai’s narrow face, still like it was carved from stone. “I’ll always be more than you, Mai, even in my defeat, which you never got to see. You used to want to be like me, and now you want to know that I will always be as lonely and helpless as you, but I wasn’t, and I won’t. You thought you had a taste when Ty Lee brought me down, but it didn’t last for long, did it? I could still snap my fingers and someone put you in prison, somewhere far from your home and your family and the people you just barely managed to love.”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Suki said,

“Do you want to hear, Mai,” Azula said, ignoring Suki as the words fell hot and hard from her tongue, “how utterly miserable I was without you? How filthy your betrayal made me, how I couldn’t stop washing my feet, my hands, my hair? How whenever the servants failed me, I banished them because one mishap, one careless action, could kill me like you had threatened to do? Do you want to hear how the throne room burned blue instead of red because I couldn’t bear to lose the trust of those who were supposed to be my closest friends?” Her breath labored in her lungs. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but none of that happened. I continued on my way as I always have—alone. I returned to the Firelord, saw my father off as we had both agreed it would be better if I stayed home in his absence, and, at the moment of my coronation, Zuko showed up with his friend, and I was outnumbered since I was without my elite team. It was a matter of numbers, of strategy. Even a princess knows when she has been beaten.” She lifted her head high, chin jutted in the air. “You can’t touch me, Mai. You never have.”

Mai didn’t let her eyes drop. But she did lean back after a moment, sighing. “You’re lying. As always.”

“As if I would lie about this.”

“It’s exactly the thing you would lie about. You don’t know how to be honest.” Mai stretched, languidly, her hands clasped behind her head. “You rewrite what happened, so you don’t have to deal with it. So you see yourself as the person you want to be, instead of the person you are.”

Ty Lee crept towards Azula, and folded her clenched fists into Azula’s loose palms. “Oh Azula. Stop this.”

"Enough," Suki said, as she rose to her feet. This time, both Mai and Ty Lee looked abashed and ashamed, but Azula didn't.

"I quite agree, Suki. Enough." Azula kicked the bowl of rice that Mai had given her across the deck, and she moved to the prow of the ship, so that the girls were behind her. A chill came from the ocean but she didn't mind, she didn't care, even though her skin pricked with goosebumps.

Azula stiffened as she felt Ty Lee's hand touch her shoulder. "Ignore them."

Azula jerked from her, and refused to turn to look at her. She was so close, she was hotter than the fire. Azula forced herself to breath.

Ty Lee leaned close, whispering her name, her breath warm against her face. “They're just giving you a hard time, and can you really blame them? It's just a game. Don't you remember the games we used to play, together? You made all the children cry because they wanted you to love them, but you wouldn't because you had us. You didn't need them, not like you needed us."

Azula did remember. Their games had been known all through the academies, and they had gotten in so much trouble, but nobody could make them stop. And she remembered Zuko crying for his mother—their mother—the morning after she had been banished, and she remembered Zuko crying when Father had come towards him without mercy, and she remembered how Uncle Iroh cried when he lost his son and his throne. “Of course,” Azula said. “How could I forget?”

"You're cold," Ty Lee said, noticing her gooseflesh. She pressed herself close, her hands settling on her waist. "Let me warm you."

Azula stiffened, but did not back away. She would not let Ty Lee have the satisfaction, or give her a chance to think that she might possibly be afraid of her, after what had happened the last time Ty Lee touched her.

“Have you ever had anyone besides us?" Ty Lee asked. "A friend? A boyfriend? A girlfriend?”

Azula glanced over her shoulder towards the fire. Orange flames wrapped around the wood, blue hearted flame in their center. Her eyes stung from the smoke.

“You never had any friends, did you?” Ty Lee said. She leaned her forehead against Azula's shoulder.“You only had us, but not even then, because you always thought we wouldn’t do what you wanted unless you made sure we remembered who you were, Princess Azula. The one person who could banish us if she ever wanted to. Who could sever whatever bonds we formed. You made us feel special and then you made us afraid it would end.”

Ty Lee removed her hands from Azula's waist so that she could slide them down Azula's bare arms. "You're so cold," Ty Lee said.

If Azula shivered, it was from the chill thick on the ocean. Not because of anything else.

"Doesn't this feel nice?" Ty Lee asked.

Azula turned so that she put her left hand on Ty Lee’s shoulder, whether to push her away or to brace herself, she wasn’t sure, and her limbs, her treacherous body, hesitated and hesitated and hesitated as Ty Lee waited for her to respond. “I don’t need to feel nice.”

“You don’t need anything, do you, Azula?” Ty Lee said it sympathetically, as if she presumed to know her.

“I don’t,” Azula said.

“You don’t need your father to wait for you. You sat at his left hand, but you don’t need him to care about you like he cared about Zuko. You don’t need him either, do you? It’s not like you didn’t chase him across four nations. It must have been easier when you could say you were seeking the Avatar—if your paths crossed what did it matter, since he also sought your prize.”

“Father sent me after Zuko,” Azula said. “I was fine without him, but it was Father who wanted me to bring him back so he wouldn’t embarrass him anymore!”

“Because you weren’t enough, were you, Azula? Not even your glory, your successes, your triumphs could banish the shadow of your brother’s shame, no matter how bright and how blue and how hot it burned.” Ty Lee tightened her grip around Azula’s hands. “Or perhaps it’s not that you weren’t enough—but you were just enough. A weapon doesn’t need, does it, Azula? It’s just there to be used as desired. And when it’s no longer needed, it’s set aside and left behind.”

"I know what you're doing, Ty Lee," Azula said. "You're trying to make me feel small and worthless--you're trying to mimic me, but it won't work. I know who I am, and I know what I must be."

“You don’t need Li and Lo,” Ty Lee continued as if Azula had not spoken. “They practically raised you because your mother was gone and your father was busy, but what does that matter? You were born grown, weren’t you? You don’t need them, just like you don’t need us—just like you don’t need this.” She pressed her mouth to Azula’s knuckles, kissing her there. “Or this.” She pressed her mouth to Azula’s cheek.

Azula could not move. She could barely think. She could barely breathe.

Ty Lee cupped Azula’s face in her warm hands as she pressed another small kiss to her forehead, whispering, “Or this.”

Azula shoved Ty Lee so that she stumbled back several paces--but she was spry, nimble, and did not lose her balance. She looked at Azula as if she had been slapped. "Don't you dare touch me ever again," Azula said.

Ty Lee looked at her like she had done on that day at the Boiling Rock. "You're not alone, Azula. You don't have to be alone and friendless--not anymore."

"Yes, I do!" Azula said. "You all want to see me fail. You don't want me to get my bending back. You don't want me to succeed. You wish that I had died!" Azula could barely speak around the rawness of her throat, the graveyard her mouth had become.

Ty Lee shook her head. "Whatever you want, Princess Azula." She turned and rejoined the others who were still eating.

Azula turned to face the ocean, and she wiped at her eyes with her hands. How she hated the wind, so full of salt, that made her eyes water. She couldn't wait to leave this boat. She couldn't wait to leave them all as they murmured and plotted together behind her back.


	5. Interlude: Picture Perfect

Azula tugged at the edges of her robe as she evaluated herself in the mirror. She was small and light, like one of the knives that Mai favored. She took a steadying breath, guiding it down to her stomach with her palms. Her hair wasn’t quite perfect, not nearly perfect enough for a family portrait. Her mother wouldn’t like it, so she undid the ribbon with a sharp tug.

Her hair fell in a dark curtain, and she ran her fingers through it. She glanced up when she saw her mother at the door, also small in her red, gold ribboned silks. She looked so elegant with her slender flame in her hair. “Azula,” she said.

“Mom,” Azula said right back.

Ursa drifted closer, her hand held loose beside her as she reached towards Azula, and she followed the rhythm and flow of her motion, reframing herself center in the mirror, without her mother ever having to touch her. She sighed as she peered at their reflection, shifting her gaze from side to side. “I don’t think you have a bad side. The painter will have no excuses to show how lovely you are,” Ursa said.

“Well, if he doesn’t, I’m sure we can do something horrible to punish him.”

Ursa's face fell. “Your hair isn’t in its top-knot.” She pulled a handful of hair into her hand, letting the fine strands flow between her fingers like water. An ivory comb inlaid with jade appeared between her fingers, from where she puled it from her robes.

Azula nodded, and Ursa sat in a chair as she gestured for Azula to sit at her feet. Azula did, resting her hands in her lap as she waited for her mother to start. Ursa gathered Azula's hair into her hand, smoothing and tugging, not hard enough to pull, not hard enough to hurt. The curve of her thumbs lightly graced the nape of her neck, sending shivers down Azula’s spine. She imagined her mother wrapping her hands around her neck, pulling her from the turtle-duck pond, from Eun-jae, from her friends. "I was only joking about punishing the painter," she finally said.

Ursa sighed, softly. "I know, Azula."

It didn't sound as if she believed her. Azula leaned back to press against the shadow of her mother's knuckles, and Ursa pulled away. The scrape of the comb replaced the feather-light touch of her hands, and Azula tried again to press into the pressure of it, to feel the pull anchoring her body in her skin, feel it stitching her into place with the way it scraped her skin back, distracting her from the way her fingers tingled, how she always knew precisely how much space she took in her surroundings.

A handful of centimeters separated her back from the shins of her mother. If she could only just lean back—

“Stop squirming,” Ursa said, removing the comb as she waited to be obeyed.

Azula stilled instantly, skin prickling, waiting for the comb. It came again after ten seconds—one single glide from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck and down her back.

She wished she weren’t wearing her shirt so that the row of ivory teeth would graze her spine down its entire length.

“My mother used to do this for me,” Ursa said eventually as she worked. “One hundred strokes, every night and every morning.”

“Why did she stop?” Azula asked. “Did she die?” Had her death been expected, or had it been sudden? Had she been in pain?

Ursa’s hand shuddered, then resumed its steady pace. Azula tipped her head back into the fine scrape of it, her eyes nearly closed.

“I married your father,” Ursa said. “I have not been able to see her since. I am not even sure where she is anymore.”

When Azula was grown, she would do as she pleased. No one would stop her. No one would tell her no. She would know everything she wanted. “Did she use a comb like this?”

Ursa laughed. “This is a comb fit for a royal family—not one my family could ever afford in their lifetime. Her comb was carved from bone and wood.” She smoothed her hand down Azula’s head, her palm fitting the shape of her skull.

Sometimes, Azula forgot her mother had grown up poor.

“I wish I had brought it with me,” Ursa said, hands still resting on Azula’s head. “I would have liked to comb your hair with it.”

“But it was just a bone comb,” Azula said, not daring to twist around lest her mother remove the slight pressure of her hands. “What’s so special about that?”

Her mother removed her hands and let them settle in her lap. “I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've always had fine things. Everything you could possibly need or want. But when you have nothing, even the most simple thing can be a great treasure.” She patted her shoulder. "Why don't you wait for the painter outside?"

Azula frowned. Why did one missing comb matter when they had everything they wanted, when they had this beautiful comb? If her mother wished, she could have a comb made entirely of jewels, but instead she wanted one made of bone. “That wasn’t one hundred strokes,” she said instead. “It was only eighty-six.”

“Of course,” Ursa murmured. She picked up the comb again and began to count her strokes, though she did not linger as she had before. She did not drag the comb from her crown to the very ends. She counted quickly under her breath.

Azula should have lied. She should have said it was seventy. That it was fifty.

Then she tied the top knot with her skilled fingers until Azula looked beautiful and perfect. “There. Now run along and join your brother and father in the hall. The painter will be here soon.”

Azula turned then, craning her neck upwards. “Who will brush your hair for one hundred strokes?” If Mom asked her to do it, she would. She wanted to hold that fine comb in her hands. Wanted to stand on the chair while her mother sat at her feet. Wanted to feel the push and pull of each stroke. Wanted to do something that they both understood.

“I will do it myself,” Ursa said, “as I have done for a long time now. Run along.”

Azula obeyed, but her feet were heavy as she fled down the halls so that her mother would be sure to hear her leave. But she turned around, steps shadow-soft as she crept back towards her room, peering round the entry way very carefully so that her mother would not notice her presence.

Her mother’s hair was down, her sleeves falling to the crook of her elbows as she combed her hair. Red scars in the shape of her father’s hands printed her arms.

Stroke after stroke she brushed. The flames from the torches lining the halls glinted against the the comb while the jade insets peered between her fingers like ever seeing eyes.

Azula slunk away then, fingers clenching and unclenching in her palms.

Zuko was already there, Father too—standing with his back towards them.

She hoped he’d say she looked nice. She nudged Zuko then, and looked at Father. Zuko pushed her back and mouthed for her to stop.

“Stop fighting,” their father said without looking at them.

They stopped. Then Ursa was there, trailed by the royal painter, clutching his inks and his parchments. “Ah,” he said. “Ah, a lovely family. Why don’t the parents sit on their very fine chairs—and the children will sit at their feet.”

Mother and Father obeyed and sat on their fine chairs with their fine cushions stuffed with swan feathers.

“And the children—now the children,” the painter said, his words more breath than voice.

Azula shoved Zuko towards their father’s feet while she sat at her mother’s.

“Oh yes, perfect—the symmetry is beautiful. Mother and daughter both equally lovely, and father and son both stoic and strong.”

Azula rolled her eyes. As if she couldn’t beat her big brother in a fight, as if she weren’t the stronger firebender. She glanced over to Zuko, and saw how their father’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder.

She looked back towards her mother. Her hands were folded in her sleeves, eyes focused on the painter with a bored expression.

“Child, child,” the painter said. “Stop fidgeting and stare straight at me.” Azula shifted so that her gaze followed her mother’s. “Yes, yes that’s right, just like that. There.”

They held still for a very long time.

Their father never lifted his hand from Zuko’s shoulder.

Azula would not have known her mother was behind her save for the measured beats of her breaths.

Azula straightened her shoulders, kept her eyes forward, without once leaning back. She was the perfect child, and the painter never had to reprimand her for fidgeting again.

It took a long time to paint, and when they were finished, there was just barely time to prepare themselves for the play. It was a good portrait, Azula thought, peering over the man’s withered old shoulders on her tip-toes. She stared at their father’s hand on Zuko’s shoulder, and knew then that it wasn't too late, that her father still saw something in him, no matter what Zuko thought.

She knit her brows together, determined that their time on Ember Island would not go to waste, not on her watch. Zuko would prove himself a son that his father could be proud of, Azula would solidify her reputation as a firebending prodigy that anybody in their right minds would be afraid to cross, and Mom—she imagined the phantom weight of her mother’s hand on her shoulder and in her hair.

Ty Lee could probably show her a thing or to, if Mom dared to ask. Maybe Azula should ask instead, and then show Mom how to do it.

It would be good mother-daughter bonding time, wouldn’t it? This is how you block someone’s chi, she would say, and then she would look through curtains, and see what would happen the next time their father held her hand like that when they were drinking tea. Her mother would be proud of her for something like that.

A voice called, pulling her back from her thoughts. She smoothed her hair with her palms, gently tugging them, the sensation narrowing and centering her focus. “Hurry up, Azula,” Ursa called. “We’re going to be late for the play.”

Azula whirled from the painting, fire jetting from her feet to hasten her steps. As she neared them, she could see her brother and mother smiling together beside an empty palanquin, but her father sat alone inside his own palanquin, and his mouth was turned down, and he was frowning.

When she neared them, feet still smoking, she looked up at her father, and it seemed as if his face softened for just a moment. His voice was even gentle as he said, “Well done, Azula. It takes years for someone to become proficient, and yet here you are.“

Her skin flushed, and she fire-jetted a circle around him once more, but she miscalculated the tightness of the curve and tipped over, falling to her knees. Pain seared her kneecaps, and her flush of pride morphed to a red blush of embarrassment as she hurried to her feet, brushing off the dirt from her clothes as her father laughed. “And I suppose we still have a few more years yet, don’t we, Azula?”

Her blush spread beneath her collar. He only ever laughed when she made a mistake, when she reminded him she was still technically a child—though she was so much more than a little girl, so much more than Ozai’s second child—and she stamped her foot. “I’ll do it perfect before we leave. You won’t even see me coming until it’s too late.”

Ozai mussed her hair with his hand, the hair that Ursa had so carefully combed. He never would have if she hadn’t fallen, if she hadn’t miscalculated, if she hadn’t embarrassed herself in front of everyone who mattered. She looked back at the scorch marks that marred the grass. They still smoked. At least they showed she wasn’t a complete fool.

“And what about Zuko?” Ozai said. “Can you do just as well?”

There was a glint in his eye. The same glint when he asked Azula where the last rice cake had gone when he knew perfectly well she had already eaten it. She looked from her father to Zuko, who had already bowed his head with shame.

“No, Father,” he whispered.

“Have you even tried?”

Ursa interjected, her voice hard and honed as fine as one of Mai’s knives. “Ozai—“

“How will he grow into a son I can be proud of when you’re always coddling him, Ursa? How will he want to reach out and stoke that fire within him, and use it, if you never let him?”

Ursa moved behind Zuko, putting both her hands on his shoulders, sheltering him with her embrace, protecting him from the scorn in their father's voice. She opened her mouth, and words came out. Her voice so gentle and calming. 

As Azula watched, it became hard to breathe in the heat.

“I’ll teach him,” Azula said in the brief pause between when Ursa had finished speaking and when Father opened his mouth to reply. Azula moved in close to Zuko, and put her hand in his, tugging him so he stood from his mother, and closer to her. He winced at how tightly she held him, which only made her squeeze harder. “We’ve already arranged it, haven’t we, Zuko?”

“You did?” Ursa's voice came out sharp, shearing the thin silence between her ears, and Azula flinched. “Why?”

Azula looked up at Ursa, putting on her most serene smile. “Because I’m the most perfect sister anybody could ask for.”

“We will discuss this later as we have delayed long enough,” Father said. “We are going to be late to the play.”

Azula stepped into the second palanquin, dragging Zuko after her. Mother went to sit beside Ozai, her head shaking in disapproval as always.

There was no sound but the labored breathing of the men who marched them into the square, no disruption but the few times their burdens slipped on their sweating shoulders. Sometimes Father stuck his head through the curtains and urged them to go faster, faster, double-time, voice whip-sharp and just as cruel.

Their pace outnumbered the beating of Azula’s heart.

They arrived at the playhouse with enough time to find their seats, the ticket taker groveling as he informed them that no tickets need be sold to members of the royal family, the best seats always reserved for them should they deign to grace them with their presence, and Azula observed their bowed heads, their eyes sliding away from them as her father towered over them, how they cringed away from him.

It felt satisfying.

One day, she would be like that. No one would dare touch her without permission. They wouldn’t dare tell her what to do and how to do it. She couldn’t wait to grow up.

She took her seat, standing on it so she could see over the heads of the patrons. It was the same play they went to see every year, Love Amongst the Dragons. She never could understand why Mom liked it so much.

The actors couldn’t act. Azula was certain that she could waltz onto the stage and take the dragon emperor's place, wearing his mask with more assurance and certainty than the actor who played him because she knew fire better than he did. These people weren’t even benders.

She twisted her fingers through her sleeve as the spirit with the blue mask cursed the dragon emperor to mortal form, and her nails dragged down her arm.

Maybe her uncle hadn’t killed the last dragon, she thought. Maybe the last dragon was still hiding, either by choice or by fate. Maybe one day she would find it, and prove herself once and for all.

She shivered, and smoke filtered from her nostrils as she breathed deep.

Zuko noticed it, and he leaned up to whisper in her ear, “What are you doing? You’re going to get us into trouble.”

“Relax, brother,” she said. “Everything is under control.” 

The play continued, and Azula shook her head as she always did, because the play was wrong though. Love couldn't solve anything, it couldn't fix anything. If she had been the dragon emperor she would have broken the curse by remembering her fire, and burning down the world and whoever had hurt her until she stood triumphant in its charred ashes.

She laughed and laughed while the crowd cheered and clapped as the actors bowed after the play was finished. Her mother admired, as she always did, the beauty of the love story. She seemed wistful, almost, as she spoke of it.

But Azula could barely listen as she summoned a flame and searched for its blue heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot for "Love Amongst the Dragons" taken from the ATLA wiki entry: [[click here](http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Love_amongst_the_Dragons)]


	6. The Storm

They sailed south so they could follow the chain of Fire Nation islands east towards Ba Sing Se. They needed to resupply for their journey—water in skins that wouldn’t crack and split, dried meats and fruit that hurt Azula’s teeth, and other foods that would keep them nourished and healthy—in theory. Azula looked down at the goods before her, fingers playing with the coin that Suki had entrusted to her (just as if she were a child), and remembered a time when they could have taken whatever they needed for free.

“I’ll give you a silver piece for four of your mangoes,” Azula said to one of the merchants that had set up their booths by the dock. “They’re probably infested with maggots or so ripe they’re bruising with rot, so I wouldn’t wait around looking for another offer. It’ll only be lower than mine.”

The merchant folded her arms, dared to look Azula in the eye, and said, “No. Five silver pieces.”

Azula slammed her palms on the counter and loomed towards the merchant. “I don’t think you heard me correctly, so let me repeat myself very patiently. I said one silver piece because your goods are not worth five. And besides, I think that's a very fair price, considering who I am. Surely you recognize me, don't you?”

The merchant huffed her chest a little more, shifting into something that vaguely resembled an offensive stance, but was probably more stubborn than anything else. “I’ve seen you. Not looking at other stalls. Only looking at mine. You want them very badly or else you would have left already.”

Azula tucked the two silver pieces that Suki had trusted to her care into the leather pouch strapped to her waist. “Of course, when you put it like that, perhaps the pleasure of watching me walk away will feed your hungry children.”

“I’ll sell the last of these old mangoes before the sun sets,” the merchant said as Azula turned around. “I don’t count it a great loss to lose business from one such as you.”

Azula flushed with heat simmering just below her skin, but it still wouldn’t spark into flame. It wasn’t real firebending, just a pale echo of something that had once been great. She remembered when she had first made their way to Ba Sing Se with Mai and Ty Lee. They had been treated like they deserved to be treated. They hadn’t scrounged for food. They didn’t worry about packing salted meats that looked like they belonged in the Water Tribe instead of the Fire Nation. They hadn’t needed to worry about conserving their money or starving to death or picking up a disease.

Even Zuko hadn’t traveled so hard. Zuko had traveled like a prince, a banished prince, but a prince nonetheless.

Until she had run him to ground, and he could find no refuge in his royal title. Then he had walked on his feet, had searched for food. He had been so skinny when she’d found him. His hair shaggy, unkempt, naked without its top-knot.

She smiled at that.

Her face fell again as her fingers found the crooked fringe of hair she had cut with her own hand before her coronation. She had ruined it, just like she had ruined everything else.

She tried to tuck the strands behind her ear but her hair still wasn’t long enough. She closed her eyes, and inhaled a breath that filled her lungs, before exhaling it slowly.

The warm scent of fire lilies tripped lightly across her tongue. She remembered that her mother had favored them, had always kept one or two in her room. Once, when they were younger, she had slipped them in her hair, just there over her ear.

She turned away, looking now towards the ocean, the sea-salt tang of it heavy in her nose and on her tongue, washing away the scent of the fire lilies. She passed a building that had bars in its windows, flinching when an old hand, wrinkled and veined with blue, clutched after her. “Water,” a voice croaked. “Water for a poor old woman held prisoner here.”

Azula stilled, her head swiveling until she focused again on the hand that flapped after the approaching and receding steps of people who minded their own business.

They ignored her, save for a tightening of their lips, a downcast turn of their eyes, a rush in their footsteps.

Azula looked for the guards that should have been stationed there, but she could see no one. She rolled her eyes. Why would she be surprised that some peasant village was incapable of standard protocols when it came to the confinement of prisoners?

She drew closer to the building, and the old woman must have heard her because her arm stiffened, her fingers stretching outwards as she said, “Is someone there? Can you help me? I’m just a poor old woman who is unjustly imprisoned.”

“Who are you?” Azula called out, but stopping just shy of the crone’s finger. The nails were split and cracked, scabbed over as if she had scrabbled at the walls, and maybe she had. Azula certainly understood that feeling. “Where are your jailers?”

“I’m no one but a poor old woman looking for just a little bit of kindness,” she said. "Water, please."

“Kindness?” Azula scowled. “You’ve come to the wrong person for kindness.” She started to swerve away, her eyes still lingering on the mangoes, as she made her way to the docks where Suki was still bartering for lengths of rope and sail for their weather beaten little boat.

Azula interrupted them. “Who is that old woman in the jail cells wailing for water? It’s aggravating and embarrassing.”

The man held his hand to Azula, and then turned back toward Suki, who darted a fierce glare at Azula before continuing their bartering. Azula waited impatiently, her arms folded over her chest, toes tapping inside her boot so that no one would see. She smoothed the hair framing her face with her hands. It was stiff with salt, and she feared it would never feel nice again.

Once Suki and the trader bowed to each other after arriving at a bargain, the trader turned towards Azula once more. “The old woman used to be an innkeeper in one of the neighboring villages. She was a woman from the Southern Water Tribe.”

“She’s a long way from home, isn’t she?” Suki asked.

The trader coughed and shuffled his feet. “She was a waterbender taken in one of the raids a long time ago. She escaped, and came here.”

Suki’s face hardened in that righteous outrage that Azula had come to recognize.

“It wasn’t much of an escape then, was it,” Azula said so that Suki wouldn’t intervene. “I could have done better in my sleep.”

Suki stepped on her foot, and Azula shoved her back a few steps. By this time, Ty Lee and Mai had returned, their hands full of bags and packs. They sat them on the ground, and listened.

“She actually lived in the village for many years,” the trader said. “We were unaware that she was of the Southern Water Tribe. We thought she was one of us. I remember she would give me sweets when I was little. My father used to trade ash bananas with the village there, and I would always insist on bringing her some because she loved so much.” His face blanched but he continued on. “But she was a powerful waterbender—and she began to take people under the light of the full moon, locking villagers up under the mountain--or so I heard.”

Azula’s eyes narrowed. “She’s a waterbender—not an earthbender. She’s hardly what I would describe as strong. How could she drag a sack of turnips much less fully grown men?”

“With bloodbending, a technique so advanced only a master can do it, and only under the light of a full moon.”

“If she’s such a master,” Azula said, “shouldn't you keep her hands bound so she can’t bend? Especially so close as we are to the ocean?”

The trader bowed his head, feet shuffling nervously. “It’s a risk that we decided to take when Hama's village asked us to take her since they did not feel comfortable keeping her in their own cells. We do not desire to be cruel, like the prison she originally escaped from treated her—“ Azula rolled her eyes – “but we also desire to protect ourselves.”

“How did the other village even catch her,” Suki said, “if she’s as dangerous as you say?”

“I was told it was another waterbender dressed in Fire Nation garb,” the man said. “Apparently, Hama had hoped to recruit her as an apprentice. She—didn’t see things the same way. She bloodbended the old woman, which allowed them to take her into custody.”

Azula’s eyes sparked and she said, “Was she young with long dark hair? Did she travel in the company of a blind girl, her brother, and a younger boy with an arrow on his head?”

The trader looked at her like she was some kind of mind reader. “I don't know about the boy with the arrow--but according to the story they tell, everyone else is right on. It was the blind earthbender who rescued them from the mountains. How did you know?”

“It was a lucky guess,” Azula said, her voice sour. So Katara had been the one to lock Hama away—which, in and of itself was surprising. Azula would never have anticipated that Katara would let a fellow woman from the Water Tribe rot in a Fire Nation jail. Something like a tiny bit of grudging respect grew reluctantly in her.

“Katara did this?” Suki said, her voice small.

Azula scoffed. “You sound disappointed.”

“Wait,” the man said, “you know the company who saved them?”

“We know them alright,” Azula replied. “They’re great friends of ours.”

The trader bowed again. “Please let them know the depth of our gratitude when you see them. But if you please excuse me, ladies, I have other business to attend to.”

Suki glowered at him as he left. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I can’t believe Katara and Aang let them treat her like that.”

Azula stared at the jail, and began to pace in a small, tight circle with her hands behind her back. She had the beginning of a plan in her head—she just needed to make it believable to the others. Ironically, Suki would be the easiest person to convince. Mai of course would be the hardest. She would be the one who would see through it.

Mai re-shouldered her bag, sighing gloomily. “I fail to see why we’re bothered. The Avatar took care of the problem and obviously didn’t mind how it was handled. If he didn't care, why should we? Let’s just go and be on our way.”

Ty Lee nodded. She shook her long braid from her shoulder as she picked up her pack. Suki stood between them, biting her lip.

“But this isn’t her home,” Suki said. Her face was flushed, her hands jittered at her side. “You people took her from her home, and now she’s rotting in a jail cell because of you.”

“She’s rotting because she kidnapped people by bloodbending them,” Mai said, her voice dull.

“Besides, Mai and I didn’t have anything to do with the raids on the Southern Water Tribe,” Ty Lee said.

Suki rounded on them, her hands balled in tight fists. “And so it’s not your problem, is that it? I know it's not fair that your parents made this decision and now you’re saddled with it, but after we’re done here, you get to go back to your palaces and I return to Kyoshi Island. Don’t you think she wants to go home, too, and you’re just going to turn your back on her because she's not your problem?” Suki stopped for breath, breathing in deep and letting it out slowly. “Do you realize that these people have been dragged into permanent exile because of you? Homeless because of you? Without their family, because of you?” Suki turned to Azula. “Your search is to bring your family back together, to undo the wrong your father did when he banished your mother. But he wronged more than just you. He wronged entire families, entire nations.”

“What do you want us to do?” Mai said. “We’re not supposed to be traveling as Fire Nation. We’re nobodies out here.”

"You're pretending to be nobodies,” Suki said, voice strung tight. “There’s a difference.”

Azula listened as she watched the back and forth between them. Suki was doing all the work, and she held her tongue lest she ruin the moment.

Mai rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let’s just rescue her instead of talking about it.”

"Thank you," Suki said. "You two stay here. Me and Azula will take care of this."

"So do I not even get a say about what we do on my quest to restore my honor?" Azula called as she lingered behind Suki.

Suki did not turn back, and so did not see Azula's smile. "No, you don't. Besides this will help restore it--if you let it."

"I'm sure that I will learn a very important moral lesson instead of being terribly inconvenienced and delayed," Azula said. "The tides wait for no one, Suki! If this takes too long, we'll have to stay the night. The only reason I mention it is because you and the others miss home so dreadfully. It would be a shame to keep you separated from your loved ones longer than necessary."

"Shut up, and help me find the magistrate."

They found him in a building that occupied the very center of town. “I am very busy,” he said, head bowed over parchments that appeared to contain graphs of profits, while other scrolls contained sketches of buildings, and what appeared to be the first drafts of several laws. “Come back tomorrow.”

Azula pushed Suki back, and strode forward until she towered over the man sitting at his desk. “I think you can make time to speak to the Princess of the Fire Nation.”

He dropped his quill as his head jerked up, skin blanching as he saw her, then turning red with embarrassment. “You’re not the Princess of the Fire Nation. You’re nothing but beggared travelers, probably attempting to swindle us somehow.”

“Don’t let looks deceive you,” Azula said, her voice sharp. “After all, it was the appearance of me and my friends as Kyoshi Warriors that allowed us to take the city of Ba Sing Se. Don’t make the same mistake that has felled greater men than you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Suki’s mouth twist, and she allowed a small smile for herself. She might not have daggers like Mai to stab into someone’s vulnerable side, but her words could corkscrew an old wound that would probably never heal.

“My apologies, Princess Azula,” the man said, rising to his feet, and then groveling at the floor. “How can we assist you?”

Azula wondered if they knew that she had lost her bending—if they would still be willing to accommodate her if they knew what she had lost, that she was incomplete, that she was less than herself. She resolved that they would never know. “You have in your poorly guarded cells an old woman by the name of Hama. We’re told she used to belong to the Southern Water Tribe. Me and my companions desire to take her with us to Ba Sing Se where we will arrange passage for her to the South Pole, should she be agreeable. It is true, is it not, that with the financial assistance of the Fire Nation that refugees are returning home with monetary compensation?”

He nodded. “Of course, you are correct and wise, Princess Azula. I am agreed as long as Hama is agreeable to it.”

Azula rolled her eyes. Of course she would be agreeable to it. She was practically inhibited from bending—she’d do anything to get that power back. Azula knew that feeling well.

The magistrate appraised their company, and she knew that he saw only teenage girls. Bitterness needled through her. “But I do not believe you understand the gravity of the situation, Princess. This Hama is a very dangerous bender.”

“And so am I.” Azula’s lip curled into a sneer. “I think I can handle one old woman who has to rely on a full moon to be remotely dangerous. There won't even be a full moon for several weeks.” Silence descended between them. His eyes were on her, as if he did not quite believe her. Perhaps there had been rumors of her defeat at the hands of Katara, the same one who had brought Hama to her knees. Perhaps there had been rumors that she had lost her bending. Azula looked at the room, at the gold and ivory statuary, at the dry parchments still shiny with ink. “Would you like a demonstration of my abilities if my accomplishments at Ba Sing Se are not enough? Perhaps we'll start with your bills. Paper is so flammable--you really should be more careful."

Suki rolled her eyes and pushed Azula back. “We are already escorting one high level dangerous prisoner.” She glared at Azula. “Another one will be of no difficulties for us—especially since we won’t consider her a prisoner, just someone who could use a home that’s not a jail cell.”

“What if she does not agree to return with you to Ba Sing Se? She cannot roam free in our village, terrorizing us again.”

“Then let her rot,” Azula said impatiently. “We do not have time to debate this, as we intend to leave your village today and not tomorrow. We’re doing you a favor if you weren’t too stupid to see it.”

“Yes, Princess. Please, follow me.” He shuffled past her quickly.

They followed behind him, Suki falling in step beside Azula. “That was out of line,” she said quietly, so that he wouldn’t hear.

“Which part?" Azula asked. "As far I can, see I got results, and if I had had my way, we would have already cast off.”

“You lied about everything,” Suki said between her teeth. “You threatened him.”

Azula shrugged. “Like I haven’t done that before. It’s who I am.”

“We’re not supposed to be bullying people,” Suki said. “You’re on a quest to restore your honor—this what I witnessed here? Was disgraceful.” She stopped Azula by putting her hands on her shoulders. “You should be ashamed.”

Azula slid away, sidestepping her neatly. “Let’s continue this conversation later when we're not in the middle of your charity mission.”

They arrived very quickly at Hama’s jail. “We don’t keep her under guard. If we did, she could bloodbend them into letting her go. The water we give her to drink has a sedative in it so that we are safe," the magistrate explained.

“You drug her?” Azula said. “You drug her so that she can't bend?” She shared a glance with Suki who also appeared unhappy at this revelation. Apparently they could agree about something.

“It is a chance we cannot take—she is too dangerous.”

“I’m sure we can handle it,” Azula snapped.

He shook his head, then stepped hesitantly toward the barred window of the cell. “Hama—you have visitors with a proposition.”

“Water,” Hama croaked, “water for a poor old woman.”

“Hush!” He bent down and picked up a stone that he threw towards the jail. It clanged against the bars, and Azula could barely disguise her flinch.

Suki stepped forward angrily but Azula held her back.

Hama spoke again, indignant and angry. “And why might I care to listen to anything you have to say? You destroyed my family, my life! You have nothing that I want to hear.”

“We can’t tell her that we’re Fire Nation,” Azula said in a whisper to Suki.

“We’ll tell her we’re with the Earth Kingdom,” Suki whispered back. “Which is true considering you are with me.”

Azula strode past the magistrate, and called out, “I have a proposition that might be of interest to you, Hama of the Water Tribe.”

The old hand stuck out of its bars again, pointing at her with accusation. “That voice,” she said. “I know that voice. You were the one that said you were the wrong person to ask for a bit of kindness. You denied me water!”

“Only to offer you something so much better,” Azula said, her lips curving around her teeth. With Hama on her side, a competent bender in her debt? Well, anything could be possible.

Hama refused to ask what Azula meant by that, so Azula shrugged and went on. “We come in friendship from the Earth Kingdom. If you don’t know yet, Ba Sing Se is currently taking in refugees and helping those who wish to return home. That is where we are heading now, and we would gladly take you along with us. Unless you’d rather rot away in that cell of yours with no hope of seeing home again. It’s your choice.”

“Home?” Hama’s voice quavered. “Even so far away as the Southern Water Tribe?”

“Yes,” Azula said, “even as far away as that.”

“Then I accept,” Hama said. “When do we leave?"

Azula looked at the magistrate beside her. “Immediately.”

He shook his head, but unclasped the keys from his belt so he could remove a particular one from the ring. It was a simple, heavy key. “Leave it be in its lock when you’re done,” he said. “I refuse to come near that old sea witch again.”

“Oh, please,” Azula said, rolling her eyes. “What would the Firelord say if he knew such a coward was employed in the government of this town?” She ground her boot into the ground when she realized she was thinking of her father. Zuko probably wouldn’t care about this man’s cowardice.

The magistrate swung away from her when he heard her speak, muttering something that Azula could not quite understand.

“You should be thanking us!” Azula called back. “We’re doing you a favor. We didn’t have to take her off your hands, you know!”

But he did not look back, and Suki asked, “How old are you again?”

Azula ignored Suki as she went to unlock Hama’s cell. It was dim, and it smelled rank. As Azula resisted covering her mouth and nose with her hand, she was grateful that Mai had not come along with them. For someone as strong as Mai, she was overcome easily by things that were too much: by colors that were too bright, sounds that were too loud, smells that were too strong. Even the smell of something good was enough to send her running. She wouldn’t have been able to stay here for more than a few seconds.

Hama was crouched in the center of her cell, old robes stained with filth. Her white hair fell haggardly around her face, and she looked up at them with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. She crawled forward on her hands and knees. Her nails were crusted with dirt. “Wait, wait, wait,” Hama muttered as she still made her slow way towards her pallet with a too thin mattress. She lifted it up, and picked up a comb that looked as if it were made of whale bone.

“What’s that?” Azula said, her voice sharp.

Hama clutched it to her chest. “It’s mine—nobody touches it but me. It’s the one thing that's reminded me of home in all these years.”

Azula glared at the comb. “Why? Because it was your mother’s? Your family’s? It’s nothing but bones—like you.”

Suki opened her mouth to chastise her—shout her name in scandalized tones—but Hama just laughed as she brushed past her. “You are just a child, fool. What do you understand of home when you’ve not been in exile for as long as I?”

Azula muttered, “More than you might think,” before she started following her to the ship.

As they made their way to the docks, she passed the merchant whose mangoes had seemed so appealing. The merchant whistled at her, gesturing at her empty wares, and waved her goodbye with a smile that Azula would have burned off her face if she could. Instead, she settled for making a rude gesture with her fingers.

Mai and Ty Lee had already prepared the ship to leave, and so when they hurried on deck, they soon found themselves out to sea. Azula listened to the water pushing and pulling the ship. She rubbed her palms over her arms, her fingernails scraping at the more sensitive skin beneath her ragged sleeves. The pressure pulled her back from remembering the last time she had been surrounded by water, unable to move, unable to breathe, completely and utterly helpless.

Hama rested below because she was an old woman, and they had assured her that they did not need her help sailing the ship especially since a storm was coming, and it would be safer for her below deck. The wind that billowed their sails smelled of water and salt. It whipped Azula’s hair in her face, stinging her eyes. She ran her fingers through it, catching herself in the snarls. She pulled harder, pain lancing through her scalp as she clawed at the knots.

Ty Lee’s hand fell upon her wrist. “What are you doing, Azula? You’re going to ruin your beautiful hair.”

"You shouldn't call me that with company around," Azula said as she twitched away. “Besides, I’m not ruining anything.” This sorry excuse for a ship was ruining it. The salt and the wind was ruining it. The storm was going to ruin it.

Ty Lee slipped behind her, knuckles ghosting over the nape of her neck. Azula closed her eyes as Ty Lee began to run her fingers through her hair. “It’s not perfect, but I think it’s better.” Her fingers pressed firmly against her scalp, snaking a path down her head, down her neck, down her back. One smooth line from top to center, grounding her here, in this moment, her whole body anchored in that single movement. Azula measured her breathing, steadied it, in time to Ty Lee’s strokes.

“Someone please stab my eyes out,” Mai said behind them.

Ty Lee rounded on her, fingers gone from Azula’s hair. “Why do you have to be like that about everything?”

Mai rolled her eyes, and went back to dividing the dried meats and fruits they had picked up at the market. Azula’s mouth watered for the mangoes she had failed to buy with the coin Suki had entrusted to her. It was still in her pocket. Suki hadn’t asked for it back yet.

They were about to bring food to Hama, but she met them on the deck. Her white hair caught the wind, and she pulled her blanket around her more tightly.

“Maybe you should go down below,” Suki said, touching her arm. “It’ll be warmer there—gentler, too.” She glanced up at the sky and at the coming storm. 

“I’m not afraid of the weather or the wind or the water,” Hama said. “These things are my home. I've never felt more alive than I have on the ocean.”

That was unfortunate. Azula had planned on volunteering to bring Hama her dinner once Mai had finished preparing it. She would have told Hama that Suki and Mai and Ty Lee were Fire Nation, and that she desperately needed Hama’s help to escape from them. If they had disappeared at sea, what could Zuko or the Avatar prove other than what they already knew: that Hama was dangerous and deadly and that they had been misguided in their desire to help her.

But ultimately, what could Azula have done to save them, without her bending?

It was a good plan. Not a perfect plan, because Hama was a wild card, but Azula was sure she could convince Hama to use her bending to rid of her babysitters.

But Hama settled beside them, her hand reaching for the food, her old, paper-thin skin stretched tight over her bones. “I believe that I’m at a disadvantage in this party,” Hama said. “You know me, but I don’t know you.”

The girls looked at each other, and Suki stepped in, neatly. “Well, I’m Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors. This is Ty Lee, who joined us some time ago.” Ty Lee bowed, her eyes and mouth smiling so big Azula wondered how it was possible for someone to be so happy. Her eyes slid to Mai, who, judging by her frown and the way she picked at her food, was probably thinking the same thing. Mai was like Zuko, who was like Azula. They were never happy, and Azula scowled hard enough she felt her face twist. It was unthinkable that she shared something with them, that they actually had something in common with each other.

Suki was still introducing them. “And this is Mai, who is a friend of ours.”

“Not a Kyoshi Warrior then,” Hama said.

“I’m never wearing that uniform again,” Mai said. “But I can still fight as well as the best of them.”

“She’s amazing,” Ty Lee said, her chin propped on her fists.

“And this one?” Hama pointed at Azula.

Azula looked to Suki, waiting to see how cleverly she could lie. They hadn't had time to come up with a name for Azula. It was not a common name, people would know who she was as she heard, and so she waited to see what name Suki would come up for her.

Suki hesitated only a split moment before she managed to say, “Ursa. She’s Ursa.”

Azula had to hide her expression as she bent her head to chew on some dried meat, missing the tender fish she could have been having right now if she hadn't had to go on this ridiculous quest. And besides, a Fire Nation name? Her chances at convincing Hama that she wasn't Fire Nation were growing quite slim.

But Hama set her bowl down, her hands loose in her lap. “Now why would you lie to an old woman like that, Suki? You seemed like such a nice girl.”

Suki’s cheeks flushed. Mai had already shifted so that her knives were in easy reach. Ty Lee’s smile had instantly vanished.

“What do you mean?” Suki said, smiling a sickly sort of smile.

“I heard one of you call this one Azula. I might be old but I can still hear. And I know that there is only one Azula in the entire Fire Nation that could have released me from that cage. Azula, daughter of Ozai and Ursa, Princess of the Fire Nation, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, the one who almost defeated the Avatar—I know you. We share a defeat at the hands of the same master, you and I--or so the rumors say.” Hama raised her head, white hair framing her face, her eyes clear. “I would have preferred to do this with the strength of the full moon, but I suppose this will just have to do.”

Ty Lee flew to her feet, her knuckles crooked, and she lunged for those same spots where she had struck Azula, but a wave from the ocean pulled her from the deck. Another swept Mai and Suki off the other side, leaving Azula, who had already climbed to her feet, to face Hama alone.

The old woman hadn’t even bothered to rise. Wind whipped her white hair, and her hands were positioned in front of her chest, guiding streams of water from the ocean so that they shaped tentacles curving protectively around her.

Azula had seen Katara use a similar form in the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. Azula sneered anyway, as water began to bend in circles around her. “Are you trying to frighten me with your octopus thing or by taking away my friends? You can’t scare me. They were my jailers so you’ve actually done me a favor. I suppose I should thank you for that.” She clapped her hands slowly as she bowed to Hama. “Well done.” A whip of water lashed towards her face, and she dodged it neatly, dropping into a defensive position, though what she could do against Hama when she was literally summoning the power of the ocean against her she did not know.

“I don’t care about your Fire Nation friends,” Hama said, “and I wouldn’t keep them alive even if it would make you more miserable because I’m going to do what someone should have done to you a long time ago.”

Azula adopted a pose of feigned disinterest as she dripped on the deck. “You’re threatening to kill me? I'm flattered, really, but you’re certainly not the first.” She sighed as she slipped into an offensive form, her fingers poised in familiar positions even though she knew it was a futile hope--but she had to try to firebend. “Even my brother has threatened to kill me and he’s always failed. You will as well.”

Walls of water slammed into her, throwing her against the wood of the ship. Her skull hit the planks with a sharp smack, disorientating her, blurring her vision. She rubbed her palms over her eyes, hissing as the salt stung them. She scrambled to her feet and tried to find some sort of shelter, as she pressed herself behind the mast of the ship.

Hama sent waves of water after her that slanted and curved around the mast. Azula felt that if Hama really wanted to, she could have just pulled her overboard like she had done to the others. But no, Hama was playing with her. She could respect that.

Azula closed her eyes as her wet, cold fingers clung to the slippery mast as another wave rolled her way. She could hear Mai’s voice in her ears, that thin needle of accusation: you miscalculated.

Azula screamed, then, as she slammed her head against the mast, to banish that voice, to banish those words.

“You’re scared, Fire Nation Princess!” Hama’s voice sounded triumphant. She burst out laughing as she sent another wave of water to knock Azula off her feet.

As Azula coughed up sea water, she saw that Hama was still at the bow of the ship while she was at the stern. And there was the whipping sail, and a length of rope flailing in the storm, its knots coming undone, loosening.

Pain twisted in her kidneys, and she fell again to the ship, trying to breathe through it.

“I never dreamed to have brought the Fire Nation so low,” Hama said. She was standing now, still far from Azula, but walking slowly towards her. “I’ll rip the water from your flesh as I once stripped it from the fire lilies. It's not as good as bloodbending--but it's enough.”

Her hands tightened, and Azula bit down on the cry of pain that crowded her throat as her hands pressed against the hurt. “Is this how you show your gratitude?” Azula gasped, as she climbed gingerly to her feet, forcing her hands to reach for the poorly tied rigging. The sail was flapping violently in the wind, and the water was churning beneath their ship. The storm with Hama’s bending was making things very difficult for her.

“You stole me from my friends and family. You ruined our way of life, our culture! Why should I thank you for bringing me to Ba Sing Se, which is even farther from my old village? I don’t think so!”

She spat at Azula, and it landed on her cheek. Azula ignored it as her cold fingers struggled with the remaining knot, and she wished she still had Mai’s knife instead of leaving it behind to rust.

But they would have taken the knife from her, and besides, Mai and Ty Lee and Suki were probably dead anyway, drowned in the ocean. Azula knew they were good swimmers, but if they lost sight of the boat, if they were caught in one of the dangerous currents, there was a whole ocean between this spot of nowhere and Ba Sing Se.

Hama laughed softly. “The entire world feared you. They feared the shadow of your sail, the dirty snow your dirty engines caused to fall. They feared the long cast of your body as you stared down upon them. They feared the press of your boot against their earths. And look at you now—a shivering, frail little girl who hasn’t even sent a candle flame my way. The rumors are true! You can’t bend. Don’t bother to deny it. The Avatar took it from you as he took it from your father, and you are helpless, you are useless, you are powerless. But that never stopped the Fire Nation armies with their multitudes of groomed firebenders as they preyed upon the south, upon mothers and children who had already lost so much and who couldn’t fight back! Give up now, Princess. There's nowhere to go.”

She raised her hands, and Azula jerked at the sudden lightness in her limbs, and she fell face first into the mast. Salt from the ocean, from the blood flowing from her split lip, mingled on her tongue, and she was suddenly unbearably thirsty, craving water or wine or the melon juice they used to drink during the hottest months on Ember Island.

“Prepare yourself!” Hama cried.

The rope finally came loose in her hands, and she pulled it from the rigging, Azula holding it fast as she looped it hurriedly over her shoulder. “Just one problem with your grand plan for revenge,” Azula said. “I don’t accept it.” Then she released the sail. It flapped undone towards Hama, covering her head, blinding her momentarily. Azula ran across the deck and leaped overboard. Her arms reached over her head, hands shaping an arrow as she pressed her legs together, toes pointed just as she had been taught as a child. Moments before breaking the surface, she breathed deeply, and squeezed her eyes closed.

She barely made a splash as she plunged through the water, diving deep into the blue-blackness. A chill seeped through Azula’s clothes, her skin, her bones. It prickled against her lungs that were already struggling not to breathe as water, heavy and dark, closed over her head. Azula shucked off her boots, and the heavier cloak that had kept her warm against the wind.

Azula tried to kick her way to the surface as her lungs burned. Her limbs were stiff and, as she tried to move through the churning water, she wondered, wildly, if Hama would make it freeze around her like Katara had, completely immobilizing her, and the panic fueled her muscles as she struggled, as the surface grew farther and farther away, and she wondered if she was actually going deeper, if she was going the wrong way, if she had gotten all turned around, and her heart hammered as her mouth opened to scream, and then she was crashing through the surface, her hair sopping into her eyes.

But the ocean pulled her down again, and Azula struggled to break free and breathe, attempting to tread water as the wind made the waves unbearable and huge.

She coughed as water drained down her throat, and she tried to see the ship as she was tossed side to side. There was a smudge on the horizon that could have been the ship, but it was nowhere near by, and she wondered if the water had pulled her away or if Hama had just decided to leave them to drown in the storm. Maybe the storm was actually doing more to protect them than they could have done themselves.

Once satisfied that the ship was not in sight, Azula struggled to take a breath and shouted for Mai and Ty Lee. “Come on, beach bums!” She bobbed against the surface as she struggled to stay afloat.

She felt so weak, so tired as she looked for the glint of Mai’s dagger or the length of Ty Lee’s braid. Her breath grew shallower. It had been different when she had sent them away because she could change her mind, unlikely as that would be. But this? They’d be gone forever, gone for good, gone without her making it so.

Hama didn't have the right. The ocean didn't have the right. The storm didn't have the right.

Taking a deep breath, she dove again, forcing her eyes to open underneath the water even though the salt stung. She looked for the ribbon of pink that Ty Lee still wore, for Mai’s long face, but there was nothing but the sea and the flickering of lightning in the sky.

She stayed down there until she needed more air, until the weight of the water became too much, and she could only see Katara floating before her eyes, breathing in the water like she belong there, like it was her home even as she humiliated Azula in her own house.

Azula broke through the surface, coughing and spluttering as she thrashed to keep afloat. Then a cold something curled around her ankle and tugged, and water closed over her head before she had had a chance to breathe. She kicked out, savagely, but she couldn’t break loose and, when she opened her eyes, she was looking into Ty Lee’s desperate face as her cold hands clawed up Azula’s body. Her face was pale from the cold, her lips turning blue from lack of air.

Azula gripped her by her underarms and thrust her upwards, towards the surface, where she coughed up sea water and breathed in jagged lungfuls of air, as her hands scrabbled at Azula’s shoulders, her weight pushing Azula down in the dark places where there was no air, no way to move, just a wet grave, and then it was Azula who clutched at Ty Lee’s wet, slippery skin as she tried to pull herself up.

A hand grabbed her by the neck and heaved her onto a piece of driftwood—a remnant of an old Earth Kingdom wreck from the looks of it. Suki was clinging to its edge, with Ty Lee beside her, teeth chattering as she coughed up water. “Mai?” Azula asked, her voice scraped raw from her swollen throat.

Suki shook her head, and Ty Lee whimpered as she clutched their small piece of driftwood.

“She’s here," Azula insisted. “She went overboard with you. Or were you too stupid to stick together?”

“We got separated!” Suki said. “I’ve looked all over and I can’t find her.”

Azula glared at her, and then uncoiled the rope she had wrapped around her arm, securing it to the driftwood. She looped a length around Suki’s wrist, and then Ty Lee’s. “You’re just not looking hard enough. But I understand. Sometimes you just have to do something yourself.” She secured the very end of the rope to her own wrist so that there was plenty of give for her to dive into the water and look around. “I’m going to look for Mai while you cling to that piece of wood like bilge rats.”

“Azula, don’t!” Suki said, but it was too late because Azula was already kicking even further than she had before, when she had been too afraid she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the surface. But with the rope, she had nothing to fear.

She didn’t even have to worry about someone cutting her loose because none of them were like Mai, who kept her daggers hidden like secrets in her robes.

She kicked until she felt the tug of the rope, and then she climbed it back up for air, before diving again to the noise of Suki's protests and Ty Lee's weaker ones.

Once or twice, she felt a jerk from the rope tied around her wrist, and she jerked it right back until they stopped trying to tell her what to do, that she couldn’t do this, because Hama had been right about one thing: she was still a princess of the Fire Nation, and they weren’t anybody to give her orders.

Then one time when she came up for air, she let herself roll onto her back as the waves pushed her. It let her rest because her limbs were so tired they trembled uncontrollably. She wondered where else there was to go, if someone could even survive so long in the storm. She wondered if maybe it would be better to leave Mai behind because even if Azula did save her, it wasn't as if Mai would be grateful.

Her brother would understand that sometimes people were lost at sea.

Leaders had to make these live or die decisions all the time. They had to make the right move that would ensure the greatest chance of success.

And besides, Mai had betrayed her. Mai had chosen Zuko over her. Mai loved Zuko, and she didn't feel anything towards Azula.

Why was she going through all this trouble for someone so untrustworthy?

Because Azula decided when something ended--not some random entity like the ocean.

She turned her head to look at Suki and Ty Lee, still gripping the bit of driftwood, still trying to stay afloat.

More than they needed to find Mai, they needed to find land. They needed to find water too, water they could actually drink.

Thirst burned her throat, swelled her tongue. She tried to say, “One more time,” but her voice had been washed away along with the rest of her.

She took a deep breath, and slid beneath the surface for the last time.

Before, before that day, she could have burned this ocean away—it would have boiled until it was nothing but a flat stretch of salt.

She kicked at it, furious, and her fist went slowly through the thickness of the water because it wasn’t a physical being, it didn’t have a weak point to exploit, and then she saw the water-logged figure, just there, just floating in the darkness. Azula kicked out, arms plowing through the water until she felt the tug of the rope telling her that she had used up her lengths, so she kicked harder and harder, dragging the weight of the wood and the two girls clutching its surface, as her hands clawed towards Mai’s slowly sinking body.

Azula gripped Mai’s robes, but her arms were too tired, her body too heavy, carrying too much ocean in her, so Azula shed Mai’s heavy, outer clothes, shucking them from her as her lungs screamed for air. Looping her arm under Mai’s so that she gripped her torso, Azula started swimming for the surface. Mai’s body was held close to her, her head tipped against her shoulder as they struggled back to the piece of wood.

Suki dragged and hauled her in when she saw Azula’s burden, and they lugged Mai onto the piece of driftwood after Ty Lee rolled back into the water. The wood wouldn't support them all, and it barely supported Mai, already threatening to sink under her weight.

Sea water dribbled from the corners of Mai’s mouth.

“She’s not breathing,” Ty Lee said.

“We need to pump it out of her,” Suki said. Leaning forward so that the edge of the driftwood pressed against her stomach, Suki pushed her fingers in Mai’s mouth, swiping the interior in a circular fashion as she tipped Mai on her side.

More water flowed from her. Ty Lee had her hand on her wrist, and she said, “I don’t hear her heart.” Her face was pale with worry and the cold.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Suki said as she cupped Mai’s face in her hand and used her fingers to jut her jaw open. “It would be easier if we were on land,” she muttered as she put her mouth to Mai’s, fingers pinching her nose closed, and blew hard enough for Mai’s chest to rise woodenly. Then she put her hands, wrapped together into a single fist, and pushed down on her chest in a rhythm that vaguely mimicked a heartbeat.

Azula bit her lip when Suki went to blow again, and then to push, blow and push, while Mai just sat there, as if nothing Suki was doing mattered. Nothing happened. “You’re not doing it hard enough—you’re too weak!” Azula pulled Suki away from Mai by the rope still tethered to her wrist. Suki fell backwards into the water with a yell and a crash as Azula clambered onto the piece of driftwood. Her weight pushed it deeper into the ocean, and the water rose, buoying Mai as her hair spread around her like a black sun, and she almost floated away until Azula grabbed her wrist. “Keep it steady, idiots!” she shouted as she slid back into the ocean and the driftwood bobbed again to the surface.

“It won’t support you both,” Suki said, like Azula didn’t know that.

“Then perhaps you should support the wood yourselves,” Azula said in her most scathing voice. “It might not be strong enough to support one person, but we are. So interlock your arms underneath it and hold it steady.”

They did as she told them, and Azula was able to climb onto the wood until she straddled Mai’s torso, clasping her ribs tight with her knees, as she put her palms over Mai’s chest, achieving leverage that Suki had been unable to find. She pushed her chest in the same rhythm that Suki had used, bending to blow air into Mai’s mouth every minute or so, until Mai began to vomit up their breakfast and their tea and the ocean she had swallowed.

Azula held her on her side so that she could let it all go without choking on it, and then, when it seemed Mai was done, she let her fall back again, her chest heaving, as she gulped down air. Azula reached for her, to pull her wet hair from her face, to feel the heady pulse of life pumping through Mai’s body, to press up right against it with her palm, but Mai caught her wrist with one hand, and with the other she pressed her palm against Azula's chest, holding her back. Mai said, voice hitched with pain and not quite enough breath, “I told you to leave me alone!” She shoved Azula, hard, and she tumbled into the water, spinning through the wet darkness, her hands groping for the rope that would lead her the right way up towards air, and she broke the surface, choking and gasping, her own fist pressed tight over the place where Mai had touched her.

“You’re welcome,” Azula said. “Did you lose your manners along with your clothes?”

The three girls turned towards her, and as one, said, “Shut up.”

Azula clutched the drift wood at a spot that was well out of reach of Mai’s hands, and said, “This is a fine mess we’re in. We’re probably going to die out here because somebody had to pick up a stray.” She glared at Suki.

Mai’s voice, still weak but not weak enough to hide her resentment, said, “I refuse to die for you, Azula.”

“If I were you, I’d direct your anger towards Suki. This was all her idea.”

“We know that you went along with it because you were hoping you could use her to betray us,” Mai said. “I know you.”

“Azula,” Ty Lee said. She looked small and vulnerable and sad. “Is that true?”

Azula ignored them. “Suki practically insisted we pick up Hama. This was probably your plan all along, wasn’t it? You knew that Hama would love to get her hands on the princess of the Fire Nation, and you decided you would get rid of me without doing it yourself. Too bad you didn’t count on Hama just washing you overboard with the rest of us so she could sail straight to the Southern Water Tribe on our ship!” She lunged forward, gripping Suki’s forearm, fingers sinking into the narrow spaces between bone, and hissed in the soft gasp of air that escaped Suki’s open mouth, “You’re going to have to try harder than that to kill me!”

Suki slapped Azula's cheek with her free palm, but Azula just squeezed tighter.

“This isn’t about you,” Suki said. “This was never about you and it was always about getting a poor woman home because the Fire Nation decided to take benders from their home and imprison them!” She slapped Azula again, harder this time, hard enough to make her teeth ring and her vision blur. “You think it was just the waterbenders? It was the earthbenders too.”

“They shouldn’t have been so weak!”

“It should be okay to be weak,” Suki shouted. “Just because you’re weak doesn’t mean that you forfeit your home and family and safety! How would you feel if someone took you from your parents when you were too young to fight back, too young to crawl? How would you have liked that? Isn’t that what happened to your own mother? Banished because she was one woman who couldn’t stand up to your father and your grandfather and the armies he commanded? Did she deserve it? Should she have been stronger? Or how about now? Did you feel safe, Azula, for a single second? Or were you always afraid that your father would abandon you like he abandoned Zuko, that he’d banish you like he banished him and your mother, that he’d turn on you, eventually. Did you feel that you were never working hard enough, that no matter what, you’d never be strong enough to satisfy him because how could one little girl ever measure up to a fully grown man and his armies? Don't you ever think that maybe he should have been kinder instead of that you should have been stronger?”

Azula gaped, not even really there in the water anymore, but standing beside her father as he told her he was leaving her behind, crying that he was treating her like Zuko, his impatient iteration that she silence herself, like she really was just a child after all she had done for him. Then her consolation prize of being Firelord when no one had been there for her coronation, too busy they were, looking to the east to see the new sun rising as he burned the entire Earth Kingdom down, and the only person who had come was her brother to take it all away from her. “That’s not what happened,” she said rapidly, realizing that her pause, the things left unsaid, was filling the space between them. “That’s not what happened with me or my mother at all.” She let go of Suki’s arm and turned her gaze away. The storm was easing, and soon the waters would be calm again. “We should focus our energies on trying to get out of here. Nothing else will matter if we die.”

The storm had already begun to dissipate, but soon it was gone completely, leaving nothing but a blinding sun to continue climbing the sky. Luckily, a small merchant ship picked them up after only half a day of clinging to the driftwood, each girl taking turns with who would lie on top of it to rest their weary muscles. Burnt by the sun, skin raw and red from the chafing salt, they collapsed nearly instantaneously on the deck after they had been hauled up like a sack of fish. Azula struggled to her feet first, hands clutching the mast as she requested safe passage.

“We’re heading towards the village of Hira’a,” the captain said. "That alright with you?"

Azula blinked the ocean water from her eyes, sure she had misheard. “Excuse me?”

“Hira’a,” he said. “That is where we are traveling, and you are welcome to join us. But we will not be making land elsewhere.”

Azula clutched the mast as she laughed. It was like drowning, she couldn’t breathe through her laughter, and she couldn’t stop even though she tried.

Ty Lee slipped her hand into Azula’s, as she whispered, “Hey, are you okay?” She threaded her fingers through Azula’s dank hair and pulled, hard enough to jerk her head up, hard enough to pull Azula back into her skin.

Azula’s laughter died, and Ty Lee let her go.

The captain stared between the two of them. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the joke.”

“She’s a little sun sick,” Suki said. “I think we all are, actually.”

“Don’t presume to speak for me!” Azula snarled. Then she breathed, struggling to compose herself as she stood straight and wiped her eyes with her fingers. “Hira’a is my mother’s village before she married my father. I am looking for her, you see.”

The captain nodded. “Then I suppose it’s lucky we’re the ones who found you.”

“Yes,” Azula said sourly as she folded her arms over her chest, “I suppose it is lucky.”

She glowered as she watched the passage of the vessel through the water. There was no way that Ursa would have returned home. It would have been the first place that Father would have looked for her. Ursa wasn’t the type to return home, cowed and broken. No, that wasn't her at all. She had murdered, she had left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. She wouldn’t have returned home as if nothing had happened.

It wouldn’t be so easy—would it?


	7. What the Surf Dragged In

Mai slept for a day after nearly drowning when Hama had thrown them overboard. She wasn’t one to sleep for longer than needed. She went to bed early, she rose early, and she always found something to do. It hadn't always been that way. Before she had found her knives, before she had developed her skill, before she had realized her untapped potential, she had slept all the time because she was bored all the time, and she needed to escape the sun scraping across the sky. It was always too bright and too orange, and once she had told her mother, in a fit, that she would sleep and sleep until she died for all the interest the world held for her.

But then she had met Azula. She had met Ty Lee with her too pink outfits. She had discovered her knives.

She slept less after that, choosing instead to hone her body until it was a weapon as tempered as steel and metal. And why wouldn’t someone use her like one? She had practically cast herself at their feet—use me—because without that, what other purpose was there?

She woke, coughing up on the memories of sea water logged in her throat, wiping her mouth with her wrist. She had been wrapped in a blanket because her outer clothes were floating in the ocean somewhere. The same long robes that had hidden her knives. They were gone, again, stripped from her by Azula who had had no right.

She put her fingers to her mouth, leaned over the side of the bunk where someone had put a bucket, and dry heaved.

At least Azula hadn't taken everything from her--but still too much. Mai huddled closer under the blankets and listened to the tread of feet above her, the quiet orders of a captain shouting.

The blanket itched and she hated it.

The soft pad of footsteps alerted her, and she raised her head. Ty Lee was there, peering at her from the entrance to the hold, her braid still limp and bedraggled.

“Mai,” she called. “How are you feeling?”

“Like debris,” Mai said, slumping back, still too weak.

Ty Lee climbed down the ladder and settled beside Mai on the bed, lifting her legs and placing them in her lap, as her clever fingers began to knead her knotted muscles.

“I’m so glad that Azula found you,” Ty Lee whispered. “I thought you were gone. I looked and looked everywhere. But not long enough, I guess.” She bowed her head as if she were ashamed.

Mai covered her eyes with her arm to block out the dim light that filtered through the wood. “I don’t want to talk about Azula. And I don't blame you for anything. I know you tried.”

There was a brief silence, and Mai was afraid that Ty Lee would insist that she should have tried harder. Mai wouldn't be able to stand it if she did. Instead, Ty Lee said, “I understand that you don't want to talk about Azula. You were very angry with her. You were almost scary--but you're always scary if you're not being gloomy.” Ty Lee put her hands over her mouth and laughed, like she didn't mean it seriously.

“Do you?” Mai sighed. “Because we're talking about her right now like we always do. You never get tired of it because you're more in love with her every day.”

Ty Lee tried to tickle the tops of Mai’s knees. “Would that be so horrible?”

“I just don’t understand why,” Mai said. They had talked about this before. She would never understand--she should let it go, and let Ty Lee get her heart broken all over again. After all, she had tried to warn her, but sometimes Ty Lee didn't want to listen. "You should have been the one, not me. You would think it romantic, Azula saving you." 

Ty Lee set Mai’s legs aside, and crawled towards her so that she could lay beside her. “I don't know how to describe, but it just feels right. And look, she's changing. She saved you! She didn't have to do that."

Mai snorted. Saved her—sure. Probably another part of the plan to fool everyone that she was different, just like she had pretended she hadn't wanted to rescue Hama when that was her goal all along, even if she had failed in turning Hama against them. Azula could never be different than who she was. Mai sighed, hating what she was about to say next. “Azula will never love you back. I know this because we’re the same in this way. We don’t love people because there's something wrong with us. Maybe that’s what I saw in her the first time we met. This ability to see people and not love them. Not to really love them.”

Ty Lee was silent beside her. Then she sat up, her hands clasped tightly together, her head shaking so that her braid swung to and fro, slapping Mai's cheeks with their damp ends. “You told Azula that you loved Zuko.”

“It was the easiest way to explain what happened,” Mai said. “And I do feel for Zuko. But sometimes, I hear people talking about their great loves, and I think it's not like what I feel towards him. Even though I would do anything for him, even though I would never want to break up. But it's not love like other people describe love, not like real love. Not like you love. Maybe it's just the strongest thing a big blah like me is able to feel towards someone, but that's not something you can say when you're standing up to the person who was supposed to be your friend." She said that to be funny, to lighten the mood, and Mai paused so that Ty Lee would giggle, but she didn't. There was just the creaking of the ship, and the sloshing of the ocean against the hull. So Mai went on. "And us? We're friends, but I don't feel like you do. You know it. But you're good about it, because that's who you are. You're a good person.”

“We’re different people. That’s to be expected.”

Mai pushed Ty Lee away, the braid sliding from her wrist. “It’s more than different. I’m not stupid.”

Ty Lee knelt beside her. “I’m sorry I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You feel something that you don’t think its right, but you're wrong. I’ll take whatever you have to give me, even if you think it’s not what I want or what I need. Because I don’t want anything that you don’t have to give me. We’ve always worked well together, haven’t we? We work because we don’t ask for things we can’t give.”

“Except for Azula,” Mai whispered, feeling sick again in her belly.

Ty Lee threaded her fingers with Mai’s. “Except for Azula.” Ty Lee pressed a quick kiss to Mai’s cheek. “But we need to get up now,” she said sincerely. “The captain told me it was time to fetch you.”

Since they had lost their money, the captain had agreed to let them work to pay their fare. It was harder than before on their own little boat, and the girls passed out exhausted below deck every night (except when it was their turn to keep night watch). Their nails were split, their skin rough with callouses, and their muscles grew stronger in different ways, aching the good, bone deep ache that meant they tore and knit themselves anew.

Mai was grateful for the work, even though it was entirely beneath her, because it was easy to ignore Azula. They worked on different parts of the ship, and they both fell asleep too quickly to speak. Still, sometimes when Mai scrubbed the decks or descended on ropes to pick off the barnacles that attached themselves to the hull, she felt Azula’s hands dragging her, felt her mouth on hers, and the familiar angry bitterness would come, and she would clutch her scrub brush harder, and was glad it moved against wood instead of flesh because if she could make Azula bleed, she would. She would turn the ocean Fire Nation red with Azula’s blood, if she could.

She could be at the palace, lounging with Zuko. She could be at Ba Sing Se. She could be on their way home instead of sailing further and further from the end of their journey with each passing day.

They were sailing towards Fire Nation territory, not away from it, and when one was banished, you went away, with eyes turned towards home, even when it was too far away to be seen anymore.

Azula was right (she thought, resentfully). They would never find Ursa at this place.

But Azula didn’t care because the longer this took, the longer she had to play with them. The longer she had to restore her bending, so she could truly move against them.

Eventually, they reached their final docking place. They bowed—even Azula bowed—their gratitude towards the captain who had rescued them, and let them stay on their ship.

Mai's back ached and her stomach gnawed with hunger, tired of the frugal rations they had distributed on the ship. And they were still without money, still without a ship, still without suitable clothes or shoes. Not for the first time, Mai wondered how Zuko had managed to be banished for three whole years.

“This is a relief,” Azula said. “We escape the drudgery of the ship only to trudge our way to my mother’s old home.”

“Are you ready?” Suki said.

Azula’s face faltered before she smoothed her hair and began to lead the way. Mai wondered how Suki could let her. “Of course, I’m ready. How else am I to return home until I restore my honor? Haven’t you been listening?”

Mai rolled her eyes. This old song.

They followed her, easily catching up with the slow pace she had set. Azula tried to fall in beside Mai, but Mai turned sharp, putting Suki on her left, Ty Lee on her right.

“Are you still giving me the cold shoulder?” Azula said, a hard smile glinting around her teeth. “Remind me not to save you next time. It was generous of me, considering how you betrayed me and how you're acting now.”

“If you’d really saved my life just to save it,” Mai said, “you wouldn’t be holding it over my head like a favor I owe you.”

“Can we not argue?” Suki said, stifling a yawn with her hand. “We’re tired. We’re grumpy. We’re only going to say words we’ll regret in the morning after we’ve rested.”

They fell into silence, and kept walking until they found Ursa’s home, abandoned and dilapidated on the edge of the village. They stumbled over the threshold, and fell asleep on the floor, dirty with dust and earth that had blown through the flapping door, which they propped shut with their small bags.

Mai woke early though, perhaps because the floor did not rock with the beating breath of the ocean, pushing and pulling them somewhere far from home, or maybe it was because the hard floor bit into her shoulder blades. Whatever the reason, it was impossible to sleep again.

She got up slowly, stretching until her back popped, easing some of the tension in her spine. The door was open, and a cool sea breeze came through it, leaving goosebumps over her arms. She shivered as she stepped outside, as she saw the stars just beginning to fade into the dawn. A blush of pink rose over the horizon, and she scowled.

“Too colorful for you?” Azula said, somewhere to her left. “You might want to go back in then. There’s nothing but grey dreariness in there. You’d like that.”

Mai cursed herself for not noticing that Azula had not been sleeping with the others. Or perhaps she had noticed and she hadn’t cared or she had cared too much. Her head ached, and she rubbed her temples with her fingers. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

Azula sidled towards her, fingers running along the wall of Ursa’s old home. “I was here first. You’re the one who joined me. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t want to be with you,” Mai said, but she didn’t turn away and she didn’t leave. Azula crept closer until Mai could feel her body heat. She didn’t want to give Azula the satisfaction of backing away, so she stayed still, her eyes sharp. “You always take my knives, and lose them.”

Azula’s eyebrow arched, and she laughed. “Excuse me for not saving them instead of you. Next time, I’ll tell the water not to weigh so much.”

“I thought you were too strong to be beaten by something so common as nature,” Mai said. “Isn’t that what you always say? Weren’t you the one who told your soldiers that the tide had already decided to kill them while you were still mulling it over when you demanded them to defy sense and the entire ocean just so you could make port when you wanted to?”

Azula’s face soured, and she turned away from Mai.

“You shouldn’t have taken my things,” Mai said. “You don’t get to take what you want from me anymore, even if Ty Lee lets you do it to her.”

“Are you jealous, Mai, of me for something you already have? Don’t think I haven’t heard you and Ty Lee being so very friendly together.” Azula tapped her chin. “What would Zuzu say if I were to tell him how close you two have become? What good friends you are?”

Mai’s eyes slid from Azula’s face so she didn’t have to look at that smirking scorn. “Zuko would know that you were telling lies because you're jealous.”

“I don’t get jealous of other people. Other people get jealous of me.”

“Of course they do,” Mai agreed, sarcastically. “You always need to be better than people, always need to one-up them. What are you trying to prove, Azula?”

“That’s a lie,” Azula said. “You always one-up me in the gloom and doom department. I’ve never seen anyone without so much passion. Zuzu was right when he called you a giant blah. I don’t know how I tolerated you for so many years.” Azula smoothed her hair with her palms.

Mai glared, held her arms closer to her sides. How had she endured this from Azula for so long? Or was this something new? Why would she say these things after saving her from drowning? Azula was capable of murder, had always been capable of it, had terrorized turtle-ducks and a boy who was just two years younger than her—or rather, had attempted to. Sometimes, Mai's knees felt just as weak as they had first gone when she heard the news that Azula had failed in killing the Avatar—even if it wasn’t for lack of trying. She wondered if Azula had ever felt the same way. If she had given the credit to Zuko because it somehow distanced her from the act. If Zuko’s shady assurance that yes, he was sure that the Avatar was dead, had brought some small relief that she, at fourteen, had finally killed someone. Maybe Azula could still feel guilt. Mai shook her head. It didn’t matter. Azula had tried to kill someone and had only failed because Katara was more skilled than she. Actions were truer than words. The end. It would have been easy for Azula to let her drown, to basically kill her, but she hadn't. Mai hated her for it, hated the questions she was being forced to asked, hating that the person who had hurt her so much, had saved her too. It was confusing.

Azula slid closer to Mai, one shoulder raised, eyes dangerous and predatory. She jutted forward, leaning sharply at her waist, voice sour and shrill. “Are you going to thank me for saving you now that we’ve had this heart to heart?”

This time, Mai stepped back until the wall of Ursa’s small hut pressed firmly against her back. “This wasn't a heart to heart.”

“Would you rather have died at the bottom of the ocean? Imagine what Zuko would say to that.” She pitched her voice higher. “Oh Azula, why didn’t you save Mai, my last and only love." Her voice shifted again to her normal tone. "Oh I’m sorry Zuzu, but Mai just wouldn’t let me save her. She’d rather die than accept my help because the loathsomeness of that outweighed her desire to see your face! But then again—“ she paused, her palm covering her left eye—“who could blame you?”

Mai reached for the knives that should have been there but were still at the bottom of the ocean. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny. Like you haven't told that joke before.”

Azula feigned a pout. “Just because it's been told before doesn't mean it's not funny. But what's even funnier is that you're still not thanking me.”

Mai glared at her, then sighed. “You want to talk about this now? Fine. I’m not going to thank you because I shouldn’t have to. You’re holding it over me like I owe you now. I don't owe you anything, and I never will. You're like my parents, always making me choose between them with a kind word or a gift--until Tom-Tom came, and then even you wanted me to give him up.” Mai turned away, crouching in the lingering shadows of the dawn, away from the shafts of sunlight rising over the tops of the old dead volcanoes, hurting her eyes, making them ache. “It's just a game to you, like everything else.”

Azula loomed over her, looking down on her with her arms folded across her chest. Mai stood up again, quickly, no longer caring about the bright sun, so that Azula could not be in that position above her. Azula refused to step back, and so did Mai, so they stood too close to each other, close enough to feel the rise and fall of their breaths, their body heat against the chill morning air.

“Let me explain something to you,” Azula said, the words falling in a hot veil against Mai’s face. “I saved you because if I hadn’t, my brother wouldn’t have welcomed me back, no matter who I bought with me. Of course,” she added, “I never expected him to accept my return with an open armed embrace, but better a cold shoulder than no welcome at all. And believe me, he would have nothing but cold fire if I returned without you.” Azula turned away, looking carelessly over her shoulder and smiling as she did so. “See, not everything is a game. It's strategy, something you were never very good at.”

Mai sighed. It wasn’t fair that Azula could kill with her hands and save with her hands and smile the whole time like there wasn't a difference between them. “I should have thought about that,” Mai said, the words coming slowly from her mouth, as if her voice and tongue were divided from each other.

“Yes, you should have,” Azula said. “You are usually so much better at perceiving these things. Perhaps you have a blind spot when it comes to me. But who wouldn’t? Even Zuzu does. Why else would he have let me go?”

“I trust the blind spot is mutual,” Mai said.

Azula’s lips twisted around her teeth as she laughed. “Trust is for fools, and I’m a fool no longer.”

“Neither am I,” Mai said.

She still felt like one though, and she hated herself for that.


	8. Interlude: Azula's Gift

Zuko was not an early riser, so Azula was not surprised when she had to climb onto his bed, shake his shoulder, and whisper in his ear, “Come on, Dum-Dum. Have you forgotten already? It’s time to rise with the sun.”

And Zuko pushed against her lazily, his hands fisted against her shoulders as he yawned hugely, saying something vaguely like, “Come on, Azula, get off me.”

She reached for the coverlets, stripping them from him until the cool morning air hit his bare skin, and he yelped as he tried to tuck his legs to his stomach, but she sat on him with her arms crossed over her chest. “Come on, Zuko. You should be the one waking me up since you’re the eldest.”

That got him moving, and he trailed after her as she slipped down the halls of their home in Ember Island. “I always hope that this is the morning,” she whispered, “that we’ll see Dad too rising with the sun, that we’ll see him firebending, and then for once it will just be him and the sun and us, and he’ll say, let me teach you, and he would teach us all the things we never learn in school.”

“Dad’s never taught me anything,” Zuko said.

“Well obviously.” Azula paced through the courtyard. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, and the horizon was just beginning to blush pink. “You’d bore him.”

“I know,” Zuko said, his voice grumpy.

Azula abandoned the courtyard and ran through the grass, her feet getting wet from the dew, skin pricking with the cold of it. She ran up the small knoll that faced out towards the sea, and gestured for Zuko to follow her. Together, they waited until they could see the yellow glow of the sun glinting against the water, and then they began.

Azula dropped into the most basic firebending stance and, when Zuko didn’t follow suit, she cleared her throat. “Don’t think I wasted all that time dragging you here for you to do nothing.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know this, Azula. You don’t need to insult me. It’s not like father has trained you either. You don’t know more than me. I'm not entirely stupid.”

“I do this every morning, and I won’t have you ruining it because you think you’re beneath it.”

The tops of Zuko’s ears flushed red and he followed her hastily, clumsily. “Oh.”

She sighed as she walked towards him. She moved his elbow so that it was just a bit steadier, kicked his feet farther apart so that his stance was broader, his root firmer. “No wonder you can barely firebend,” she said. “How often do you practice your basics? You're sloppy.”

“I don’t know,” Zuko said. “I haven’t done something as basic as this for a while. This is the first thing we learn, isn’t it? Father will never be impressed with this.”

“Everything comes from this,” Azula said. She resumed her own stance once she was mostly satisfied with the way that Zuko held himself. She filled her lungs with air to fuel the fire pit in her stomach. “If you can’t do this perfectly, without thinking, then you’ll never be able to do anything. Even the most elaborate bending is based in these basic stances.” She knew this because she had snuck into the Fire Sages’ secret libraries, reading their scrolls of bending. “Watch me,” she instructed. She breathed, and began a series of forms that were technically more difficult than someone her age should be able to perform. She did them slowly, and as she did them, she showed Zuko the basic stance that rooted the form. There was something like satisfaction as she saw the spark of realization light his eye, the way he started to smile as he watched her, the way his hands began to clap.

She stopped to wipe the sweat from her eyes.

“I see,” he said. “I see it now.” He began to breathe deeply, his palms guiding it to his stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to try!”

“You can’t just skip everything in between!” Azula said. “You need to learn it all or else your fire will be weak because you’re not connected to it. You think I skipped the boring parts in between? I didn’t. It just looks like I did because I’m good at it.”

“Okay,” Zuko said. “Show off.”

“If you can’t handle a demonstration then maybe you’d like to train all by yourself? Good luck with that.”

Zuko looked stricken. “No, don’t, Azula, I didn’t mean it.”

Azula glared at him, frowning, tapping her chin as she pretended to consider what he’d said. She liked it when Zuko begged. Even though he was bigger than her, older than her, he looked so small and insignificant and untalented beside her. “Don’t embarrass yourself, brother.” She guided him by his elbow until they stood beside each other and breathed in the sun. “Let’s start again. No more interruptions. We need to be serious about this or not do it at all.”

They reviewed the basic steps until Zuko lost the rough edge of his body falling clumsily into them, until he flowed into the different forms like orange and yellow flames moved into one another—each one unique, but connected, and ready to grow into something greater.

Then she made him go through them again. They did it until it was no longer morning and the sun rose high above them. They did it until the sweat ran down their skin, soaking their clothes. They did it until both their eyes closed and they moved as one by merely feeling the other’s presence. She had frequently repeated the forms until she fell into the rote of it, the trance of it, the comforting repetition of it, but it was different doing it with someone else. It was almost better, somehow.

She could tell he was tired, but she didn’t care. This was what it took to become a great firebender. But still, when they finished the set he put his hands in the formal position of respect and bowed. “Sifu Azula, may we please proceed to the next level.”

She smiled at that. It did sound very nice, being spoken to like that. Still, she exaggerated a pose of thoughtfulness as she paced around him, examining his root which was, to be honest, the strongest she had ever seen it, and it was because of her efforts. “I suppose we can do it once more, before we proceed,” she said.

He covered his irritation well, but she saw it in the narrow set of his lips, the twitch in his eye, but he did it anyway, and he did it perfectly.

They never had a chance to proceed because Li and Lo appeared on the crest of the hill. They flapped their old hand against their faces as they panted for breath, and told them in gasping words that they were too old for this, and that their parents wished to see them as it was time to eat. Zuko shouted happily, and Azula joined him, shrieking, “I challenge you to a race, Zuko! Last one to Father bears shame and humiliation forever!”

She was quicker on her feet, and so she soon overtook him, tired as he was from working so hard on his firebending. It was almost too easy, and Azula, not for the first time, wished for a sibling who could keep up with her a little better than Zuko did (but not enough to supersede her—just enough to make it challenging). She skidded to a stop just outside the courtyard where she could hear the stiff voices of her father and mother. She peeked through the narrowly parted curtains, grunting softly when Zuko windmilled into her, plowing her into the ground with him falling on top of her. She kicked him hard in the shins as she climbed to her feet. “What’s the matter with you,” she hissed as she gave him her hand to help him up.

“What are you waiting for?” Zuko asked, angry that he had lost. "And why are we whispering?"

“You, dum-dum,” Azula snapped back. “I can tell from father’s tone that he is upset about something. It would hardly do for either of us to barrel towards them as if we were some kind of savages, or for us to have some kind of argument that they could hear.”

“Oh,” Zuko said.

Azula rolled her eyes as she brushed the grass from his coat. “Let’s go.”

Tea steamed from the small, fragile cups that had been set at their places. Ursa was reading one of the scrolls that had been delivered that morning since she kept the affairs of Azulon’s house in order since the death of his wife. Ozai sat opposite her, his face knit with frustration as he looked out towards the beach, looking for them, Azula realized. He had wanted to start earlier, and they had kept him waiting.

“Sorry we’re late, Father. Li and Lo were so slow coming to find us.”

“Enough,” Ozai said, as he picked up his chopsticks and began to eat his rice.

Ursa rolled her scroll and put it aside. “Are you alright, Zuko? You look out of breath, flushed.”

“We were racing,” Zuko said. “Azula challenged me.”

Ozai paused. “And who won?”

Zuko looked down at his food. “Azula did.” The works came grudgingly from his mouth.

Azula looked at her father but he didn’t say anything as he went back to his own scrolls. She frowned, her fingers clenching against her skin. Could he not spare one single word of praise for her?

“Perhaps you should try harder,” Ozai said.

Apparently beating her brother was no longer an accomplishment.

Azula scowled at her food, then looked over at Ursa, who had reached for Zuko’s hand. “There’s no shame in losing, Zuko.”

But she was wrong. There was shame in losing. Nobody wanted to be a loser. Losers weren’t crowned Firelord. Losers weren’t respected or feared or loved.

Zuko smiled at her—that weak, grateful smile of his that always made Mom pat his shoulder and smile back. It made Azula’s skin crawl.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I wish you wouldn’t tell him that, Ursa,” Ozai said around his rice.

Ursa let go of Zuko’s hand to drink her tea, only looking up when Li and Lo approached in order to wait on them. “Where did you find the children?” she asked.

“We were practicing our firebending,” Azula said before they could answer. It irritated her that Ursa had asked them instead of her or Zuko. Did she not trust them to tell the truth? Did she not even trust Zuko when he was with her?

Li and Lo nodded in agreement.

“Both of you together?” Ursa said.

“How else would it be?” Azula said, casually. “Isn’t that what we should be doing as brother and sister? I told we were going to.”

“Of course,” Ursa said. “I just did not believe you actually meant it.”

Ozai put down his chopsticks gently. “I think we should make this more interesting, more of a challenge. When I was a young boy—“ and it was so impossible to imagine him as a boy—“my father initiated a contest between Iroh and myself to test our skill. The boy who defeated the other first won, and was duly rewarded.” His lips tightened into something resembling a smile. “What do you say, Zuko?” He reached for his cup of jasmine tea, and sipped it.

“Ozai,” Ursa said, “we don’t need to do it that way. They can train together, and then show us what they’ve learned from each other when they’re ready.”

Ozai put down his tea very precisely, very deliberately. “That’s hardly enough to drive them. And some of us—“ his eye strayed towards Zuko—“could use more drive and ambition. I can think of no one better than Azula to help Zuko find his fire.”

Azula’s cheeks flushed with pride.

“There are other ways, Ozai.”

Azula hated that her mother did not want her to work with Zuko, no matter how frequently she said that she was okay with it.

“But none that work so well,” Ozai said. “It was good for me and my brother. It will be the same for Azula and Zuko.”

Azula wondered at that. She knew her father's true feelings for her uncle. Across the table, Zuko sighed, already resigning himself to defeat like a baby. They finished their meal in silence, and they left in silence when their father rose and their mother sat still and silent with her cold tea, before very quietly giving them permission to go and play.

Zuko took off immediately, but Azula lingered. Her mother's head was bowed, her frail-looking hands circled around the tea cup without moving. "It's going to be fine, Mom," she said.

Ursa did not bother to raise her head. "What is?"

"Everything. You'll see," Azula said as she left the room. She easily caught up with Zuko, who was walking slowly down the long stretch of beach. His shoulders were hunched, his feet shuffling. Sand billowed with every step. She took his hand, stopping him from his drudgery, and he did not pull away. “Why so sad, Zuko?”

“Because nothing’s going to change. You’re going to beat me, no matter how much I improve, and Father won’t see anything in me, ever.”

“With that attitude you’re right—you’ll never beat me. Of course, I am unbeatable but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even try.”

“I can’t win, and I don’t want to fight you, Azula.” He gripped her hand tightly. “It was nice just practicing with you, wasn’t it?”

“It will be nice fighting each other, too. It's not like it's a real fight, a real Agni-Kai.”

“I don’t like fighting. I don’t like how everyone expects me to want to fight you. Why do you think Dad likes you best? It’s because you thrive on stuff like that, and I don’t. I don’t enjoy it. I’d rather just be with you.”

“Fighting me is being with me,” Azula said. “It’s not like I’m going to hurt you.” Though she could, if she wanted to. She could even make it look like an accident, if she wanted to. People got hurt all the time.

“It would be more fun if we weren’t fighting.”

“For you, maybe.” Azula sighed and pulled him by his shoulder as they resumed their slow walk down the beach. They walked in the surf, the white foam flecking their skin as the tide came in. “This is the way you earn Father’s respect and pride. You should be thanking me that things turned out this way because if you succeed, you have the pride of both our parents. If you don’t, you still have Mom’s, which is more than I’ve ever had. I don’t even know why I’m helping you,” she added, rounding on him. “You already have Mom, why do you need Dad too?” But she already knew why. Because Father, when he became Firelord, would need the eldest to succeed him, as was tradition. Father would need her help, even if he didn’t know it yet, to groom their family to take over the throne, like he so desperately wanted.

But Zuko didn’t understand those things. He never looked that far ahead. He wanted his father, but didn’t want to prove himself worthy of his father.

“What are you talking about? Mom loves you,” Zuko said. "I keep telling you that. You should believe me for once."

Azula tossed her head. “No, she doesn’t. But I’m okay with that. That’s fine with me.”

“Yes she does,” Zuko insisted. “She’s not like—“ he bit down on their father’s name when he caught a glance of the hard glare that Azula leveled his way.

Azula sighed, dramatically. “Oh, Zuko. Do I really need to explain to you how much affection Mom shows you that she doesn’t show me? She sits with you by the turtle-duck pond. She touches your hand. She laughs with you. She doesn’t do any of those things with me. You might as well admit that you have our mother’s favor. Perhaps you can tell me what you’ve done to earn it?” Azula turned to face him. “I’m helping you, now you help me. It’s fair, don’t you think?”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Zuko said defensively. “I’m enough for her.”

“Then why aren’t I?” Azula shouted. Then she put her hands over her mouth, biting her lips under the cover of her knuckles. She shouldn’t have said it that loudly. It was unseemly.

“You are!” Zuko said again. “Mom loves you, she loves you more than Dad love you.”

“Don’t say that.” Azula struggled to keep the creeping shrillness from her voice. “You don’t know anything.”

“Then neither do you!”

Azula calmed herself. She smoothed her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair. “Let’s not argue—it’s so unbecoming. Why don’t you tell me how Mom loves me, and then I’ll believe you.”

Zuko stared at her. His mouth opened several times to speak, but then he closed it again, as if there was nothing to say.

“I don’t say she doesn’t love me because I’m taking it personally. It’s just a fact, Zuko.” She picked up one of the flat stones at her feet and threw it at a flock of seabirds circling the sand. They fluttered in alarm, and she threw another one at their departing forms. The stone fell short, and Azula listened to its dull splash with something like disappointment.

Zuko glared at the stone and the speck of bird in the distance. “I know enough to tell you that Mom likes that I don’t throw stones at scared birds.”

“Nothing happened,” Azula said. “There was never any chance that they would be harmed.”

He shrugged. “She wouldn’t like that you threw the stone at all.”

Azula stamped her foot. “What am I supposed to do? Nothing?”

“Perhaps,” Zuko said. “Would that be so terrible?”

Azula tried to imagine her body sitting perfectly still, at rest, and failed. “You don’t understand,” she said, almost petulantly if she were childish enough to sound petulant which she most certainly wasn’t.

Zuko swallowed, and edged near her, his hand resting on the jut of her elbow. “You’re right. I don’t. Why is it so terrible not to be mean?”

“Because if you don’t, people will walk all over you. They’ll hurt you. If you just opened your eyes for once you’d see that’s how the world works.”

“Is that what you do to the girls at your school?”

She rounded on him so that his hand slipped along the smooth silk of her robe. “What do you know about that?”

“That you challenged someone to an Agni-Kai and won.”

She did not correct him.

“People hate training with you because you always win, and you’re always mean about it. I've heard Mom talking. She always sounds so sad.”

They shouldn't be so disappointed in her. Zuko should be proud to have a sister like her, who was so talented and so amazing and so perfect. But maybe she would try it his way for once. Maybe she would make her mother smile at her for once. “I’m going to give you a gift, Zuko,” she said almost dreamily. “I’m going to let you win.”

His jaw dropped. “What?”

“It’s the only way.” Azula rounded on him, finger driving into his chest. “But we have to make it look realistic, or Father won’t believe it. You need to look like a worthy opponent, and my defeat will have to look real, but not too real, not real enough that Father—“ her voice falter and she swerved away from finishing the sentence. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s really nice of you, Azula,” he said. “Which you aren’t. You aren’t nice. At all.” He edged away from her.

“Shut up, Zuko. I’m not doing this for you.” Her eyes burned, her skin thrummed and vibrated with excitement.

“Azula? You’re scaring me—get control of yourself.”

She stopped and looked at the red-rimmed flames flickering at her fingertips. “Everything is in control, Zuko.” She flexed her fingers into tight fists, and the fire snuffed against her skin. She smiled at him sweetly like any other nice sister would do. “Everything is going to work out perfectly. You’ll see."


	9. The Lies They Spoke

Azula entered Ursa's old home after leaving Mai behind to squint in the sunlight. The others were stirring, and Ty Lee sat up to look at her expectantly, as if she should divine wherever her mother had gone from this hovel alone. The night before, Azula had seen how deserted and dilapidated the dwelling was, but now with the sun rising, the place was even more depressing than she had thought. 

It was completely empty, except for the ruined mess of shutters, the dusty cobwebs fluttering from the windows, and what appeared to be a small hutch towards the back of the room. Someone had left home and never returned. Not even the dust was disturbed. No one had been here for a very long time, and something scrabbled at the insides of Azula's throat as she surveyed the desolation around her. She could feel the familiar shape of a frown puckering between her brows, the way her mouth dried and swelled with thirst at the same time, the way she could feel strips of screaming frustration peel from her esophagus as she forced herself to swallow it down so no one would hear. 

Every place was a dead end. Every decision she had made the wrong one. She would never get her bending at this rate.

"Wow," Mai said, as she leaned against the open doorway, arms folded across her chest. "There's nothing here."

Mai was right of course, and how Azula hated that. All that time, wasted. All that effort for nothing. Azula, hands clenched into fists, strode towards the hutch, and systematically began opening its drawers. The first was empty, except for a thin layer of dust that rose in little clouds as she pulled it open and pushed it closed. The second was the same.

She wondered if she would find the bone comb her mother had been so nostalgic about. She wondered what she would do with it if she found it.

Which was also a useless exercise as the hutch was completely empty. All she had for her efforts were dirty hands, which she wiped clean on her sea-stained trousers.

When she turned back towards the front of the dwelling, she saw that the other girls had shouldered their mostly empty packs, and were waiting for her. "This was disappointing," Azula said, "but we shouldn't let that deter us from our path. We'll speak to the villagers. Surely, they will remember my mother. Maybe one of them might even be able to tell us where she might have gone."

Ty Lee clapped her hands. "That sounds like a great idea, Azula!"

Mai's face soured, and Azula knew that she did not favor the idea of more walking. Well, neither did Azula, but what else were they to do? There was nowhere else to go, and maybe the townsfolk would know of Ursa.

Many people shook their heads when she asked them. They knew of Ursa, of course, but they didn’t know her. They could only shrug and wonder what happened to her too. Only one middle-aged woman with streaks of silver in her hair lit up when they asked her, wearily, if she knew Ursa. She invited the girls to walk with her as she went to fetch water from the well, and Suki offered to carry her simple jug because she was such a good-goody. Azula scowled at Suki behind her back, seething.

"Of course I knew Ursa," the woman said. "We used to be best friends before she married Lord Ozai." She bowed her head, and Azula wondered if she still missed her friend, if she wanted her to come back.

Well, that was stupid and silly. Ursa was never coming back, to anyone. Even her grief and regret were ridiculous. This woman should have known that Ursa would not have valued friendship over everything that Ozai offered. But that was what happened when people trusted the people closest to them; they always turned on their so-called friends in the end. She should have known better.

"Did Ursa ever come back after she married Ozai?" Suki said. By this time, they had reached the well and Suki worked the rope to lower the bucket, and bring it back up again.

The woman shook her head. "No, she never did. She never wrote. We never heard from her again. It was as if she died, but we knew she hadn't. We heard about her. Heard about her babies. Heard about her banishment." She bowed her head as she leaned against the stone walls of the well. Her shoulders were bent as if she carried a heavy burden. "Bad business, that was. I can still hardly believe that dear Ursa could be a traitor."

"Oh, you better believe it," Azula said. 

"She was so kind, so loving. She was the best friend someone like me could hope for." She put her hand over her heart and squeezed her eyes shut.

Azula was afraid the woman was about to cry, so she scoffed. "Oh yes, I'm sure she was the greatest friend to the people she loved. But what does that mean when they leave you behind without a word." She wondered if Ursa had taken time to say goodbye to this woman before she had left with Ozai.

Behind her, Azula could hear Mai sigh. 

The woman looked up then, looked at Azula in the eye so intently that Azula wanted to look elsewhere, maybe at the street vendor selling meat that made her belly twist with hunger, but she wouldn't. She couldn't. "You look like her," she finally said. "You have her eyes, the set of her mouth. You're Azula aren't you?"

"What if I am," Azula said, carelessly, but her eyes skittered over the woman's face, looking for a lie. Not that she would see it, of course. After all she had not seen the lies her friends had told her as they had grown up together, before they had betrayed her. But no one ever said they saw Ursa in her. They only said she was Ozai's daughter.

"You're looking for her." The woman was truly weeping now, and she slid to the ground, hugging her knees close to her. "She never came back, but sometimes soldiers from the palace would come here. Sometimes a terrifying man with an eye on his forehead would join them. They would march up the street, and there was never a reason for them to be there, and so I always wondered if they were looking for Ursa, and I wished so desperately that she would come back, because I would hide her from them, without thought, I would hide her, if only I could see her one more time, if only we could only skip rocks at the lake one more time or swim in its waters. We spent so much time there, together."

"That would have made you a traitor too. You know what my father did to traitors," Azula said, barely realizing she spoke as she considered what Ursa's friend had said. It would have been easier if Ursa had returned to this woman who claimed she would risk everything for her. But why would this woman even bother after Ursa had left her behind for a life at the palace she had later thrown away for nothing? She shook her head. It was so stupid and meaningless.

"She doesn't mean that," Ty Lee was saying. "It would have made you a good friend, the best friend!" Ty Lee's gaze flickered towards Azula once before she reached out to help the woman to her feet. 

Ty Lee carried the sloshing jar of water as they accompanied Ursa's friend back to her home. Along the way, she told them what she remembered of Ursa, how she had loved the theatre, how she had loved her long hair and took such care of it, sometimes spending hours on styling it just so. Azula's frown deepened as she listened, and she clenched her own hair, still stiff with salt, between her fingers, tugging and pulling so it hurt. Azula learned about Ursa's laugh, which she had heard so rarely in the palace, but that had supposedly come so easily to Ursa before she had left with Ozai.

"Her smile was so beautiful," the woman said, and Azula tried to remember her mother's smile and could not.

Azula glared and kicked at the small pebbles she found in the street. She watched them skitter, and didn't care about this woman's memories of Ursa. They weren't real. The person this woman remembered didn't exist anymore, if she ever had. 

They paused at her doorway. The woman took the jug of water from Ty Lee's hands and set it down at their feet. "I hope you find, Ursa. I hope you find her, and send her home. But first, I hope you would join me for tea."

Azula nodded. "Of course we'll do our best to find her." But she wondered which home Ursa would return to. This one, or the other one? As they filed into the woman’s home, Azula lingered behind them. She did not want tea, but she watched the woman prepare the ginseng for a few minutes before looking out the window. Just there was a shimmering line of blue that wasn’t the ocean, and she knew it was the lake her mother had once frequented. “Excuse me for a brief moment,” she said. “I need to relieve myself.”

Azula left the house and, after looking over her shoulder to make sure her babysitters weren’t spying on her, she broke into a sprint. Quickly, she left the nice roads of the village and ran through the undergrowth of the surrounding countryside. The ground was warm from the sun, and gnarled with rocks and clumpy earth, but she did not let that slow her down.

Sweat dripped down her skin, and by the time she reached the edge of the lake, she was hot, panting, and sweating. She took deep lungfuls of air, tasting the green smell, and flapping her hands at the hovering insects that made their home in the lake water.

Smooth-faced rocks littered the wet soil, and she bent to pick one up. With a twist of her wrist, she tossed it, and it plopped into the lake with a loud splash. Scowling, she tried again, and again the stone failed to skip. Her hands flexed at her sides as she glared, fixated on the lingering ripples of the water, as she remembered what her mother’s friend had said.

They had come here. They had skipped rocks. Why couldn’t she do it too? Why did she fail at something even so simple as that?

Azula shook her head, grinding her teeth together. There was nothing here but a stinky body of water and rocks that left her hands dirty.

But Ursa had come here. Ursa had come here often.

Azula wondered how many steps her stone would have skipped.

She wondered if the waters held secrets of her mother, even though that was stupid, water didn’t know anything.

Goosebumps pricked her skin through the heat as Azula slowly took off her worn and battered shoes. The rocks hurt her feet, and she stepped gingerly between them until water lapped at her toes and the mud sliming in between them.

Azula closed her eyes, cringing, as she went deeper into the lake. Water rose to her thighs as she walked deeper into it. Her hands sank beneath the surface, and she held very still as she forced herself to close her eyes and breathe.

Ursa had swum in these same waters, but Azula could not, even though there was nothing to fear. There was no storm, there was no waterbender, and the water was not deep enough for her to drown in. She hated that she was still afraid, even after defeating Hama, even after surviving the storm. She shivered when she remembered the ice holding her, and she forced herself to think of something else.

She imagined her mother’s hair thick and running with water as she rose up from the depths of the lake, laughing.

It was like thinking about a stranger.

Azula’s mouth twisted and her head hung against the glaring sun. There was nothing here for her to find or to follow, just as she had feared, just as she had known there would be nothing.

But she had almost hoped, and Azula wondered if she would ever learn.

Slowly, she turned back, stepping carefully so she would not slip and fall and drown under the limpid surface of the water. Her feet looked distorted beneath the lake, crooked and fracture like light through prisms.

When she was finally free of the water, she put on her shoes without drying her feet for had she no cloth and her clothes were soaked and dripping. She did not run back to the town. She walked, slowly, because her feet had been scraped by the rocks in the lake bottom, and the skin burned with each step.

“Azula!”

It was Ty Lee, and Azula turned slowly towards her. She was running towards her. “We thought you had run away!” She looked angry, as if she were about to cry. “We thought you’d left us behind.” Her hands were clenched hard on Azula’s shoulders.

Azula stared at her, and shook herself so that she could remember why she was here, and who she was. “As you can see, I haven’t. I remember the promises I make. I even keep them now, remember?”

Relief threaded through Ty Lee as she embraced Azula. “You’re all wet and gross!”

“I was at the lake my mother apparently frequented,” Azula said. Not that a visitor could tell. It wasn’t as if the water was whispering her name. It wasn’t as if Ursa had left something of herself behind for Azula to find.

“That must have been nice—though you should have gone after tea so that we could have come with you. You didn’t have to go there alone,” Ty Lee said as she stepped back, her hands clasped. “Did you feel her there?”

“Of course, I didn’t, Ty Lee. You know I don’t believe in that. It was just some water and some rocks and some bugs. There wasn’t anything there.”

“C’mon,” Ty Lee said, pulling her by the hand. “We’re supposed to meet by the well in a few minutes.”

Suki and Mai were already there. Mai was glowering as she leaned against the well and, when she saw Azula in her soaked, mud-streaked garments, she put her hand over her nose. “You smell disgusting.”

“We thought you had—we were worried about you,” Suki said.

She was not a very good liar, but Azula could play along. “As you can see I am perfectly fine. Of course, Ursa never returned home and nobody knows where she might have gone. Why wouldn’t I be fine after such good news?” Azula put on her broadest, brightest smile.

“You don’t need to be sarcastic,” Ty Lee said as she pulled her braid over her shoulder and twisted its lengths between her hands.

“But where are we going to go next?” Mai asked.

“We’ll go to Ba Sing Se,” Azula said. “Refugees always find their way there eventually. Maybe she did too.”

She expected resistance, but there was none. It was almost like old times, Azula thought, as they made their way back to the docks. For once they were listening her. For once, they were obeying her.

It felt good, even though it wasn’t real, and it didn’t mean anything. The only reason they did was because they didn’t have any better ideas themselves.

Ty Lee slipped her hand in Azula’s and smiled. “We’ll find her. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Ty Lee,” Azula said, forcing herself to smile. “Soon, people will start calling you a liar, and they’ll never stop.”

But Ty Lee only laughed. “It was just a nice thing to say. Of course I can’t say whether or not we will. But I can hope, and so can you go.”

Azula scowled at her. There was no hope. The longer it took to find Ursa, the longer it took for her to restore her bending, the farther everything she needed to do, everything she needed to accomplish, became.

And her father would hold each passing day of his imprisonment against her.

Azula swallowed around the lump that had grown in her throat, and she looked over her shoulder as if she expected to see him there, just like she had seen Ursa in the reflection of the mirror on that day, on that terrible day, when her mother had said she loved her, and that hadn’t been real either.

But there were only the mountains and the shimmer of lake on the edge of the horizon, and the way Mai was glowering at her, which was not strange in the least.

Maybe her uncle was right. Maybe she was crazy for expecting to see her father, for thinking she would see her mother in this place.

But no. She shook her head, firmly. Her uncle lied—her uncle always lied. The only thing she was was stupid because she kept letting herself get distracted. All she had to do was focus on the trip to Ba Sing Se, figure out her next move, and everything would be fine, and she would have everything that should have been hers.


	10. The Ostrich Horse

Since their transportation had been commandeered by Hama and because their mission should preferably end sooner rather than later, Azula was in favor of procuring another boat which turned out to be more difficult than she anticipated. She had gone up to a man with a fine boat, and asked that he give it to her because she was the Fire Nation princess, and he would be duly rewarded upon her return. Her claims incited mocking laughter that Azula was unable to stop. She had only stood there, shaking, as he asked her to firebend, as he wondered since when did princesses walk around like filthy peasants. Azula had prepared to strike him, but Suki had her right hand, and Ty Lee her left, and she was powerless as he walked away, still laughing. Behind her, she was sure she heard the other girls giggling behind her back, but when she turned on them, their faces were neutral, and Suki suggested quietly that perhaps they should try another course of action. Azula wanted to steal his boat, but after some petty bickering when Suki refused to even consider the option, they decided not to. Of course, Ty Lee and Mai went along with Suki as they always did these days. It was humiliating, and there was nothing that Azula could do about that either. 

They traded work for passage on a small merchant vessel that traded between the Fire Nation islands and the western coast of the Earth Kingdom. The sores on Azula’s hands hardened into callouses. Salt crusted her skin and mouth, and she squinted against the rising sun, remembering how once she had welcomed it, how once she had greeted it with her own ribbons of fire.

Now she squinted at the way it glared against the water, and there was no time to practice because they worked from dawn until dusk. The work was exhausting and she fell into deep sleeps as soon as she retired, and she did not wake until she heard the call from the lookout. The vessel also caught fresh fish to trade with the little island villages, so she learned how to gut and filet them so that they would be ready for the various markets at which they stopped.

When they did well, the captain even gave them a cut of the profits, and it felt nice to be able to feel the weight of the coin in her small, leather purse. Of course, she was a princess. She deserved everything they had and more, but she had felt like she had had nothing for so long, that to finally have something was almost intoxicating.

Still, her muscles knotted with exhaustion, but her mind churned restlessly because the physical work was not challenging enough. It was not enough to heave the sail and scrub the deck and prepare the fish. She burned against the repetition, solving the same problem over and over again, with nothing to show for all her effort.

She had once solved the problem of Ba Sing Se, until her uncle had undone all that she had accomplished.

Azula gripped the wooden deck with her hands until the wood splintered underneath her cracked nails.

She considered leading the crew to mutiny and replacing herself as captain, but she did not know where she would go even if she were to take the ship. Taking the ship would be easy, she thought dully, pitching her body to match the push and pull of the water beneath the hull. The captain did not inspire anything beyond the promise of the day’s pay from his crewmates. They obeyed him to feed their mouths, and their pathetic families at home. Their inner fires were not stirred, they had no ambition, no killer instinct. They could easily make more gold by attacking the pirates that lurked in these waters, but it did not occur to them. The pirates would be at a disadvantage because of their lack of discipline. Not only would they earn the rewards posted for the pirates’ disposal, but they could help themselves to whatever valuables were in the hold. It would make them rich enough to buy themselves off the islands the Fire Nation had forgotten, the ones that could have been Earth Kingdom colonies for all the Fire Nation had once cared for them, and bought a legacy their children could be proud of, if they would willing to forget where the gold had come from.

All she would need to do was whisper about the captain’s cowardice, his softness, that he cared more for his gratuitous comfort than the wellbeing of their crew. They would beg her to be their captain within the end of the week. She wouldn’t even have to suggest it herself--they would see that she had the innate right to rule and beg her to take his place.

The captain himself would probably surrender to her, as the Earth Kingdom minister had. She would accept, scornfully, of course.

She considered it. Toyed with the idea. Dreamed about it. But it would pose no challenge, and besides, the Avatar and her brother’s forces would only find her anyway and bring her screaming back.

They would not fight the Firelord for her. Not men like these.

How could she fight her brother and the Avatar both without her bending when she had been so soundly beaten, when she was supposed to have been too powerful to be defeated—not with the comet in the sky. She ground her teeth and pulled her hair. 

She pressed her splintered fingers together, watched the pucker of blood, and counted the throbbing pain.

She could not give her babysitters the slip because the moment she did, they would tell Zuko and the Avatar. She could not be the one to leave them behind--they would have to be the ones to abandon her, and so far, they had not, no matter how much she goaded them. Even though the road had turned so hard, they still worked beside her, Mai thunderously, Suki dutifully, and Ty Lee nearly gladly.

It was insufferable.

They took their leave of the ship when it landed on the shore of a poor Earth Kingdom village. The captain told them not to head too farther east, lest they find themselves lost in the Si Wong Desert, and laughed raucously as if he had said something clever. 

They stretched, and Ty Lee flopped on the ground as her eyes closed. “Come sit with me,” she called. “It’s as if I can still feel the rocking of the ship.” She giggled. "It feels funny."

Mai made a disgusted noise. “I want to feel like I’m on firm land again.”

Azula stretched her muscles. Everything seemed very far away, and even though the heart of the village was just a short walk from them, it felt as if they were in the middle of nowhere. “The distance to Ba Sing Se isn’t going to walk itself if we just sit here like bums.”

“Ba Sing Se will still be there,” Suki said, “especially now that you aren’t there to take it from us. We can rest for the rest of the evening.”

“My legs have been cramped by that leaky excuse of a boat,” Azula said. “I want to walk, and stretch my legs. I want to Ba Sing Se to find my mother.”

Suki put braced her fists against her hips. “And I want to take a moment to rest.”

Ty Lee raised her hand from where she was still sprawled in the grass. “I also want to rest. Our auras are wilted and grungy. We need to relax.”

Mai glared hatefully towards them. “Can we relax somewhere with a hot bath? I'm disgusting.” She sniffed her hands, that still smelled of fish, and shuddered as she made a face.

“The fresh air is the best,” Ty Lee said. “Just breathe it in, Mai. You’ll feel better.”

“I’ll feel better when I can sleep on a real bed,” Mai said, folding her arms across her chest and glowering. "It would be bearable if I was on the way home, but we're not. We're just going farther and farther away."

“I agree,” Azula said, stepping back to fall in line with Mai, who sidestepped away from her. “I also miss home, and I assume that Suki and Ty Lee miss the Kyoshi Warriors.” Her lips curled around her teeth in something like a smile. “I would so hate to keep you from your loved ones. Unless you miss the comforts of the palace even more. They are quite luxurious.” She looked at Mai sharply. She knew it wasn't true, of course. Mai loved Zuko more than anything. Azula could have given her whatever she wanted if she had only asked. She might have even said yes, once. 

“You threw us in a dungeon,” Mai said.

Azula shrugged. “So I did. But that was before. This is now, and I’m a different person because I have changed and dutifully learned my lesson.”

“Are you changed?” Ty Lee asked. She rolled on her belly, clasping her hands in front of her as if she hoped it were true.

“Of course I am,” Azula said. “Can’t you see it?”

Suki sighed, heavily. “Azula may be right. We should go, at least to the village to buy supplies so we can get an early start tomorrow.”

Azula smiled at the others as she trailed after Suki.

The village had a small selection of trade. There were fish, of course, and Azula was certain that she herself had helped catch some of the fish she saw. There were ash bananas, looking small and pale and not delicious at all. She looked at them with her mouth screwed up in distaste. The bananas must not have been ripe when they were sent here. The mangoes and the papaya were the same, and Azula wrinkled her nose as she wandered the streets, looking for food that would keep them on their journey, and any other essentials they would need to survive the trip.

Azula heard a raucous cry and looked around until she saw a small corral containing a cluster of ostrich horses. She went towards it, slowly, considering. They weren't for sale, but that didn't deter Azula.

One of the ostrich horses was reaching for a bit of grass outside its pen, and it shied away from her as she reached to stroke its beak. It scratched the ground with its talons, spraying her faded trousers with sand. She glared at it as she pushed its head away from her, and went to rejoin Suki and the others, who were clustered together in a tight circle, talking. Probably about her, Azula thought resentfully, as she cleared her throat a little too loudly to announce her presence.

“It’ll take a long time to make it to Ba Sing Se on foot,” she said as she looked over her shoulder towards the restless ostrich-horses.

Mai sighed. "Tell us something we don't know."

“We won’t have to walk all the way,” Suki said. “We’re going to take the ferry.”

“That might as well be all the way,” Azula said, rolling her eyes. “We should see about procuring other means of transportation.” She gestured towards the ostrich horses.

“We don’t have any money,” Suki said.

"I'm the Fire Nation Princess," Azula said. "I can just order them to give me the horses. It's not like I'm banished like Zuko was."

Ty Lee almost laughed, but Mai said, "Don't you remember the last time you tried that. They laughed at you."

Azula's gut twisted and it took all her strength not to round on Mai and--do what, exactly? Scratch her across the face, maybe? Ha. Like that would really show her. She hated feeling this helpless, this powerless. So instead Azula smiled at her. “Which is why we should steal four of those steeds before we leave here tonight. After all, if we are so poor, then maybe we should start acting like it instead of like self-righteous goody-goodies.”

Suki’s brows arched sharply, her lips a knife’s edge. “You have a lot of nerve suggesting something like that. As if you haven’t stolen enough.”

“I don’t think it’s entirely the same,” Azula said. “I took what I wanted, but now I just want to take what I need. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t want to walk all the way, and neither do I. But the weather will be warm enough to be comfortable, especially the closer we come to Ba Sing Se. Farmers will be growing their crops, and there will be enough work to find along the way to feed and support ourselves. We don't need to steal a mount just because you're in a hurry.”

“I don’t think you speak for all of us. Who are you? A nobody? I’m Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, daughter of Ozai and Ursa. Who are you?”

“We’re not in the Fire Nation anymore,” Suki said. “We’re in the Earth Kingdom where you’re a nobody too.”

Azula’s eyes flicked to Mai and Ty Lee to see where their allegiances fell. They stood behind them, still and unmoving, though their eyes tracked the space between Azula and Suki. Mai would not want to go on foot. She would want the ostrich-mount but would probably choose Suki out of spite or, worse, friendship. Ty Lee would not care. Why would she? Matters of morality were for people who could afford it—not for vagabonds like they had become.

“Very well,” Azula said “I know when I’m outvoted. Still, I hope your feet blister on your moral high ground.”

She stalked east without looking behind her as she prepared to walk all the way to Ba Sing Se. But the sun was already low behind their backs, and Suki reached for Azula’s shoulder, abruptly jerking her to a stop.

Azula gnashed her teeth. “What?”

“It’s too late to go anywhere tonight. We should rest here, and then set out at dawn.”

Azula bowed, stiffly, and not entirely low enough to be respectful. “I thought we were in a hurry. But whatever you desire—I am at your mercy.”

Mai stared at the greying horizon, her arms folded. Her fingers, long and chapped in her fingerless gloves, played with a bit of unraveling thread. “Your mind games are tiresome, Azula.”

Azula peered around. “I don’t see any games. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then she laughed deeply from her stomach. “You sound bitter, Mai. It’s a good look on you. It goes well with your gloomy girl who sighs a lot performance.” When Mai said nothing in reply, Azula turned towards Suki, hands spread wide. “Where shall we sleep tonight? In that inn over there we can’t afford, or under the stars? Mai won’t like the last one.”

“It’ll be a nice night tonight.” Suki smelled deeply, and for the first time she almost seemed to smile. “We’ll sleep out here. It’ll be warm and safe.”

They made their way to a strand of trees that reached with straggling roots towards the ground.

“If we’re going to just sleep outside, I don’t see why we can’t get a few miles underway before we do. Just think, we’ll be that much closer to Ba Sing Se and home,” Azula said.

“Because we’re tired,” Mai snapped.

Ty Lee agreed. “We can’t all be as strong as you, Princess Azula.”

Before, Azula had welcomed Ty Lee’s flattery, but now it nettled her, dug under her skin. Ty Lee wanted everything to go back to being the same, but it never would be. She stretched beneath the tree first, eyeing where Ty Lee and Mai and Suki settled themselves some little distance from her, and that was fine with Azula.

Once she was off her feet, once she no longer had the momentum to keep going, exhaustion dragged her deeper towards earth, and it was a struggle to keep her eyes open while she waited for the other girls to fall asleep.

When they finally were, Azula stood silently to her feet, gliding through the darkness until she found her way to the corral of ostrich horses, waiting for their masters to come claim them in the morning.

She eyed the flock, waiting for them to become used to her presence and her scent, as she identified the four strongest she would claim for herself and the others. With four horses, she would need to create four paths—three false, and one true. The villagers probably would not be skilled enough to identify the real path, but Mai and Ty Lee would. Suki too, probably.

They would follow her, angrily. She would wait for them under the cover of the brush and scrub, taunt them about how long it took them even though they had only caught up with her because she allowed it.

It would be too inconvenient to return the ostrich horses by the time they realized her theft. Ty Lee and Mai would resist, and Suki, for all her moral superiority, would at the very least be tempted at the prospect of an easier journey towards Ba Sing Se.

But more importantly, it would remind them that the only reason they were still her babysitters was because she had allowed it.

When she was sure that the ostrich horses were used to her presence, she slipped in amidst them. Her hands smoothed their flanks as she gathered their tethers and pulled them after her. She rested her hand on the gate, and turned to look back to make sure that no one had seen her, to make sure she still had the four they would need.

A hard hand gripped her wrist, twisting until the bones ground together, and her knees crumpled towards the ground as she bit back a cry of pain that threatened to reveal to her attacker how very much it hurt. Her mouth dried as she looked up and saw Suki’s face, pale and trembling with rage as she prepared to strike.

Azula lunged forward in Suki’s moment of hesitation, dropping the tethers and barreling in her stomach, intent on driving Suki to the ground.

She had beaten her once, and she would do it again. Suki had no fans, and she had no fire, so it would be a fair fight.

She wasn’t expecting to face Ty Lee’s technique in Suki’s style though, nor was she prepared for the way her knuckles jabbed those same pressure points that had so hideously weakened her at the prison. "Don't," Suki warned.

But Suki had not struck as expertly as Ty Lee had, so Azula did not listen to her, even though her limbs felt significantly weaker as she struggled to find the strength to push back at Suki, who did not dodge but rather drove her knee in Azula's solar plexus. Azula staggered backwards before falling down. The rocky ground scraped at her thin clothes as she struggled back to her feet, coughing patheticaly for breath. Still, Azula lunged towards Suki who stood between her and the four ostrich horses she had caught, and again Suki blacked her blow and sent her reeling. Azula tripped over her own feet, and blinked up at the cloudy night sky. She couldn't even see the stars.

Suki leaned over her. “Stop fighting. You can’t win. Not this time.”

Azula snarled as she attempted to kick Suki’s feet out from under her, but Suki dodged nimbly aside.

“Fine. If that’s how you want it to be.”

When Azula struck again, Suki caught her by the hair, and dragged her down the path that would eventually lead to Ba Sing Se as Azula scratched at her wrists, at her face, but Suki held her at arm’s length, out of reach.

She was so strong, and Azula was so weak.

They passed Mai and Ty Lee, but as they rose to their feet when they heard Azula’s grunts, they did nothing to intervene, nothing to stop Suki.

Suki did not stop until they were well beyond the village and any lightly sleeping villagers. Once they were completely out of sight of the village and ocean, Suki released Azula, and she fell face forward into the ground. The dirt smelled of smoke and ash, and she coughed as she rolled over onto her back, still trying to breathe normally, still trying to see through the tears that had begun to sting her eyes, just like they had stung her eyes on that day, when she had been defeated and humiliated and abandoned.

“I told you that we would not be stealing anything,” Suki said as she stared down at Azula.

Still recovering from the blow to her solar plexus, Azula could not have answered even if she wanted to.

“You’re in my power now,” Suki said. “And I guess you want me to stop all this—stop hauling you around like baggage, stop getting in your way. To just stop so you can do whatever you can to feel like the princess you once were.” She shook her head, and she almost looked sad as she stepped back from Azula.

Azula refused to answer as she rubbed at the pained ache in her chest. Firebenders took power from the breath, and Suki had driven that from her early in the fight. Maybe it meant something that Suki was still fighting her like she could bend, or maybe it was just a smart move she used on all her opponents. But it didn’t matter. The old Azula would maybe have been able to find a spark somewhere, but now? She was too busy trying to keep from crying like some pathetic, stupid girl. What a disgrace. What an embarrassment.

“Do you know what you would do if our positions were reversed?” Suki continued. Her voice was pitched lower, more threatening. Irrationally, Azula wished that Suki would simply shout at her instead of speaking to her like this. “You’d hurt me.” She paced a slow circle around Azula. “You might even finally cross from hurting to killing, as you’ve tried so many times before. Or maybe you’d throw me in prison, and taunt me about how I could be free if only someone loved me enough to rescue me. Or you’d remind me that I’d never be here if I had been strong enough to defeat you. What do you think, Azula? Do you wish you were strong like me or that someone out there loved you enough to intervene?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Azula saw Ty Lee and Mai watching. Ty Lee’s fingers were twitching in her sleeves, as if she wished she had the courage to defy Suki as she had once defied Azula. Mai looked like she was almost smiling like in the days when she reveled in the way that Azula had humiliated and frightened people who were beneath them, who were meant to be used by those in power over them.

“But I’m not going to do any of those things because I’m not like you.” Suki turned her back on Azula.

Azula’s hand snaked out for a handful of ash and dirt to throw in Suki’s face when she faced her again.

But Suki knew, and in one fluid movement her boot pressed down against Azula’s wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to pin. “I’m not invested in you, Azula. I don’t care if you get better. I don’t care to humiliate you. You’re nothing to me. I'm not here for you. I'm here for Ty Lee, because she's a Kyoshi Warrior, just like me, and for some reason, you're still important to her even after everything you've done.” She looked away from Azula to Mai and Ty Lee. “Get over here, you two, so I only have to say this once.”

They went to her side instantly, those traitors.

Suki spread her arms, encompassing the area around them. “What do you see?”

“A scar,” Mai said.

“From a large fire,” Ty Lee added.

Suki nodded. “The Fire Nation attacked this village a long time ago, to secure the trade route we just finished sailing. This should be green with grass and forest. It should be beautiful, and it’s not.”

The first light of dawn rose in the horizon, and they could see it all the better. This was probably why Suki had wanted to wait to continue on to Ba Sing Se. She had wanted them to see, and now they did.

Azula fixed her gaze on the scar of land, and wondered how the flames must have looked in that moment. Not as glorious as their father during the comet, but it would have been enough.

She buried her hand in the charred earth, felt the ash slide against her skin.

“We are not stealing anything from the people Earth Kingdom. We're not going to try to use Azula's position to make things easier for us,” Suki said. “Your visit here will not be like last time. Alright?”

Ty Lee and Mai nodded mutely. At Suki’s prodding, Azula also nodded.

“We leave as soon as Azula’s gotten her breath back,” Suki said. “I will prepare our packs for the day’s march. The rest of you stay here.”

Mai did not disobey Suki’s order, but she did wander from Azula, her arms folded across her chest as she turned her back on the rising sun.

Ty Lee crouched beside her, tentatively reaching out to touch her shoulder, like it could mean anything. Azula was too tired to flinch away from her touch.

“You taught her,” Azula said, finally. “You taught her what you had never taught me.” She hated her. She hated her so much.

Ty Lee’s thumbs smoothed the high rises of her cheekbones. “Of course I did, Azula. I’m a Kyoshi Warrior now. It’s more than just wearing the green kimonos.”

“Does Mai know, too?”

Ty Lee laughed, gently. “Of course she does! I taught her when we were in prison together. It seemed like I should, wouldn’t you agree? We had to look out for each other, don't you see?”

Azula pulled away from Ty Lee, turned her back on her. She wished for the comforting blue walls of flame that had once kept everybody out. “You taught everyone, everyone but—“

“But you,” Ty Lee said. “Oh, Princess Azula! You could have ordered me to teach you, and I would have, because how could I say no to someone like you? But you thought my skill was just something to compensate for not being a bender instead of for what it was. You saw no real value in it beyond how you could use me to get rid of the benders in your way, and so you never asked.”

Azula glared at her, seething, as she felt her pulse return to normal, and as it became easier to breathe. Ty Lee sat next to her, and Azula refused to be the one to move away from her because she had been here first. Eventually, Suki rejoined them, and did not speak as she pushed each girl's pack into their hands.

Silently, they began the long trek to Ba Sing Se, marching through the scar, their feet scuffing clouds of dirt and ash that settled in their clothes and their mouths and their eyes.


	11. Interlude: The Things That We Could Be

“Don’t touch me,” Zuko said when Azula crept behind him to kick his feet wider apart.

She stepped back, hands flung back in an exaggerated gesture of surrender that meant nothing. “Have it your way, Zuko. Just remember that my reputation isn’t riding on your weak understanding of bending. Your stance is terrible. Feet wider apart!”

“If they widen anymore, I’ll split in two,” Zuko shouted at her.

“Don’t exaggerate. I don't understand why you're being such a baby.” She demonstrated how wide her stance could be. It wasn't practical in the long run, especially if real combat was involved, but that didn't matter in this moment.

“I’m not flexible enough for that.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “Then become more flexible. Maybe we should get Ty Lee to help you.”

“Azula!”

“Zuko!” she mimicked, her voice pitched high into a falsetto. She sank into the grass, her legs split around her, to show him how flexible she was. “It takes work, Zuko. You can’t just hope you’ll be able to do it some day just by crying about how hard everything is.”

“Fine,” he grunted, attempting to copy her. The fine muscles under his skin shivered with the effort as he pushed himself harder and harder.

Their mornings in Ember Island frequently began with Zuko becoming frustrated during their training, and Azula reminding him that it would take work and effort to perfect what she had already done. It wasn’t her fault he wasn’t as driven as she had been and was so far behind he'd probably never catch up, no matter how hard they worked together, even if he did learn to trust her eventually.

She could still see that he didn’t understand why she was doing this—that he was taking her gift slowly, by piecemeal, as if expecting something poisonous in return, surprised when no harm came to him, when he discovered no lies or trickery.

This must be power, Azula thought. He was mistaken, of course. He had no reason to fear her. She had no interest in bringing him low. She did not need to sabotage him because he did that very well himself. If anything, she’d welcome a challenge. A real challenge.

Maybe one day, Zuko would be up for it.

But for now—“Take a break, Zuko.” She stretched herself in the grass under a shaft of sun, and shielded her eyes from the glare with her hand.

He flopped down beside her, panting heavily. Eyes closed, he spoke to her. "I think the only reason you suggested that I spend time with Ty Lee is so that you'd have an excuse to invite her to the palace." He opened one eye, the corners of his mouth upturned almost into a smile.

Azula flushed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Zuko closed his eyes again, and cradled the back of his skull in his palms. Grass from the knoll stuck to him, smudging his skin lightly green. "Oh, nothing. Just that you might like her."

"I don't think you know what you're talking about, Zuko." 

"I think I do," Zuko said. "You don't look half as scary as when you're flustered. You look almost like a regular kid."

"I'm not a regular kid," Azula said. "And neither are you if you'd take one second to stop teasing me like I'm some girl with a silly crush." But Zuko wasn't wrong. It would be nice to see more of Ty Lee, instead of just at school. And if Ty Lee came to help Zuko with his flexibility--well, Mom couldn't find an excuse to say no. And she wouldn't be able to punish Azula by not allowing her to see Ty Lee if Ty Lee was coming over to help Zuko. For once, Zuko had a good idea.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Zuko said, sighing deeply as he lapsed into silence.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. There weren’t very many sibling alliances in Fire Nation history, she remembered. Most rulers only had one child, but when there were others, there was a history of siblings betraying each other for more power.

Which was probably why Ozai had wanted a second child. He had sensed that Zuko wasn’t the ruler that the Fire Nation would need, and he expected that Azula would do what needed to be done when the time came.

Azula thought it was stupid. It was true that the losers were usually weak and probably deserved whatever they received at the hand of their sibling, but most them would have been stronger together.

She knew that if Father had joined Uncle Iroh on his campaigns in the Earth Kingdom that the nation would have fallen by now.

They needed each other, even if they didn't want to, even if it was too late for them.

But Father hadn’t gone because he wanted Uncle Iroh to die because that is what people did in war--they died, and they did not come back. It was true that he would have the throne if Uncle Iroh died, but then he would be without the Dragon of the West. Uncle Iroh was a powerful man, even if he would not make a powerful Firelord.

Together, they could have been unstoppable, and her father would finally have had the favor of Grandfather Azulon.

Zuko needed her, just like she would need Zuko one day. She couldn't imagine when or why she would need Zuko--but she knew that it was true. Maybe she needed him even now, needed him and what they were doing here together to show their mother that she was not the monster Ursa thought her to be. She looked at Zuko, who was staring at the sky. She was a good sister. She was doing a good thing, and eventually both her parents would see that. But it started with the two of them, working together, in unison. 

When Father did take the throne from Iroh, she would be at his left hand, Zuko at his right, and their mother would smile again. They would be a strong family, and one day, one of his children would be Firelord. Either Zuko would prove himself worthy of the right, or it would go to Azula, and she would have Zuko beside her, her trusted brother and advisor, who would, of course, understand that it was better this way. No matter what would happen though, they would be together, and they would be stronger for it. But that chance was gone for her father and her uncle. They were too late because they would never change.

“What are you thinking about?” Zuko said, half-mumbling as if he were half-asleep.

“Family.”

Zuko propped himself up on one fist. “I miss Uncle Iroh.”

Azula rolled over on her side so that she was facing Zuko, her fist supporting her head, her elbow digging into the grass. They were close to each other. “Why?”

“I miss his laugh. He laughed and smiled so much. And I miss his tea.”

“Laughing and smiling doesn’t do anything but make your face look funny,” Azula said. “It will give you wrinkles.”

“You should smile more, Azula,” Zuko said. “Not your nasty smirk, the one that makes people wet their pants. The smile where you’re actually happy about something. Then you wouldn’t be so scary.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Azula said drily. “But remember that when people don’t fear you, they’ll hurt you.”

“Or they’ll love you.”

Azula scoffed. “Like Grandfather Azulon loves Father? A smile one day, fire the next.”

“What are you talking about?” He sat up a little straighter and she mirrored him. “Of course Grandfather loves Father. That's like saying Dad doesn’t love us. Well, you, anyway,” he added softly.

Azula let herself fall until she was flat in the grass. She draped her arm across her eyes. “You really don't know anything, Zuko.” But she knew their father would love them again when he got what he wanted, what he needed. Iroh was not a good brother because he should have given it to him, but eventually he would be out of the picture. Their father would be weaker without someone like Iroh on his side, but it wouldn't matter because he would have his own family at his side. She would make sure of it.

It wouldn’t be like this with Zuko and her, she decided. It would be different.

They would be different.


	12. Tales on the Road to Ba Sing Se

**MAI**

Traveling to Ba Sing Se was tortuous. Mai would have taken the boredom of staying with her family at the Fire Nation capital after the first day. At least they had had the comforts of their status: the shoulder born palanquins, the deference of the residents, hot water scented with cinnamon and spices, and soothing lotions smelling lightly of mango.  

Mai rolled her shoulders until her neck popped, wishing that she could loosen the knots clustered tightly against the base of her spine. They kept her awake. Most nights, she could only barely sleep. Instead, she looked up at the night sky, counting the stars in groups of three or five or seven depending on her mood. She missed her knives the most in these hours. Her hands empty and useless without something to occupy them.

Suki was awake more often than not too. Mai could hear her tossing and turning, and sometimes she would rise to her feet and stare back westwards, and Mai figured that Kyoshi Island was somewhere over there, and that she was just as weary of traveling as Mai was, that she missed home as much as Mai, that she missed her siblings as much as Mai. Mai thought of Tom-Tom frequently. She thought of how there had been a real possibility that she would have never seen him again if his kidnappers had been anyone else but the Avatar and his gang. Of course Aang had returned him to his family, and she wondered if he had done it because his own family had been so ruthlessly taken from him. She turned to find Azula a lumpy shadow in the darkness, and she wondered if Azula was the only one who could sleep on nights like these.   

They had fallen into a rhythm now, and it wasn’t like it was when they had first started, sniping at each other and complaining about how it didn’t have to be this way. Sometimes, the girls would drift wide of each other, but they never lost sight of each other. There was still the chance that Azula might wander off, after all. That was fine with Mai. She missed being alone, and she tried to remember the last time she had not been surrounded by people. It was exhausting.  They traveled mostly in silence, though sometimes Ty Lee would sing, and her voice was good, and so no one asked that she stop. When Ty Lee sang, they always seemed to drift back towards one another. Even Mai found herself angling closer, even though Ty Lee sang those silly little love songs, like the one about how it was a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the girls in the city they look so pretty, and they kiss so sweet that they really had to meet the girls of Ba Sing Se. That was Ty Lee's favorite. She sang it all the time.

Sometimes Mai even found herself falling in step to the rhythm of the music. It was nice, and it was stupid, but it was also something, and so Mai hovered close listening and thinking of Zuko as Ty Lee sadly sang about four seasons for love. Sometimes Suki taught her songs she had learned, and they would sing together, in harmony. And Mai hated that because it reminded her that Ty Lee was a Kyoshi Warrior now and, when this was done, she would go to that island in the Earth Kingdom, and who knew when she would return or if she would return. 

Mai simmered as she glared at Suki, and she wondered again why she had accepted Ty Lee when the three of them had wronged them in a way that someone didn’t just get over. Mai wasn’t some stupid girl—she had heard Suki mention it over and over to Azula, all the while making sure to keep her glance away from Ty Lee. And maybe Suki was able to rationalize that since Azula was their leader then it was all Azula’s fault, but nothing was that neat, nothing was that simple, and so Mai glared at Ty Lee and Suki both as she watched them walk together or watched them spar or watched Ty Lee flutter her hands like fans to cool the heat of the day from her face.  

“It’s terrible isn’t it?” Azula said to her one day.

Mai started, not sure how she could have let her guard down enough no to notice Azula standing quietly beside her. Suki and Ty Lee were sparring, and Mai had been watching them, thinking of their history, and vaguely wishing she still had her knives. Azula's hands were clenched in fists beside her thighs, and her eyes were fixed on the way that Ty Lee’s braid twisted in the air. They smoldered, and Mai had to remind herself again that Azula had lost her bending, that she couldn’t do anything but glare like she had when she realized that Mai had betrayed her. 

A shadow of guilt pained her and Mai jerked her eyes away.   

“The heat is terrible, I mean,” Azula said. "A princess must always be precise in her speech." She struck her palm with her hand as she stared at Ty Lee and Suki.

Mai looked at Azula out of the corner of her eye. She had loosened her hands, her wrists limp as she shielded her gaze from the glare of the sun.  

“Kyoshi Island is on the way home from Ba Sing Se,” Azula said. “Ty Lee will probably not even come back with us to the Fire Nation palace.”  

Mai frowned.  

“Yes, Mai. I believe that Ba Sing Se will be our last stop,” Azula said, her voice even. “I could be wrong, of course. I have been known to miscalculate.” 

Their eyes met, by accident, and it was as if Mai was back at the Boiling Rock. And then Azula smiled and laughed. Mai’s stomach soured as she leaned back against the grass, trying to stay in the patch of shade from the shrubbery that grew smaller and smaller as the sun rose higher and higher.  

“I doubt I’m wrong about this though. Ba Sing Se will be the last stop in our quest to find my mother, unless I am not entirely mistaken about the answers I’ll find there. But I’m not sure what Iroh will say when I ask him my questions.” The false levity drained from Azula’s voice, and Mai’s skin pricked with goosebumps. 

“What about your bending?” Mai asked before she had even realized the question filled her mouth. Her eyes widened, frustrated that she had engaged with Azula at all. She didn’t care, she absolutely, resolutely, did not care what had happened to Azula’s bending. The only thing that mattered was that she never get it back.

Azula scoffed. “My bending? That’s so sweet of you to care, but you really shouldn’t concern yourself. After all, you do just fine without it, so why shouldn't I?” 

It nettled, and Mai hated that it nettled, hated how Azula said it as if she had never thought nonbenders were weak, as if she had never once surrounded herself with nonbenders so she could have an ego boost whenever she wanted, that she could look at them and say they’re good, but they’ll never be good like me.  

Azula smiled sweetly. “But enough about me. I know that when we do return home, whether it’s from Ba Sing Se or somewhere else, that Ty Lee will not join us back to the palace. She’ll stay on Kyoshi Island, with Suki, and then it’ll just be us two. But don’t worry, Mai, eventually she’ll get bored as she always does, and she’ll flit right back to you, unless another shiny new friendship distracts her.” Azula patted Mai's shoulder stiffly and awkwardly.   

 “Leave me alone,” Mai said. "I actually want to look forward to returning home."

Azula rose to her feet and took three giant steps backward. “I know that this might not be of concern to you, but I discovered a lovely hot spring just a mile or so down the road. Perhaps you would like to enjoy it since you're always complaining about how you'd like a hot bath.” 

Mai wondered how no one had noticed that Azula had wandered off, and wondered if it had been when she was too busy staring at Ty Lee and Suki and resenting how Ty Lee had joined the Kyoshi Warriors and how Suki had just accepted her except not really because no one would do that. Suki remembered. Suki was still angry about it. There she was again, trapping herself in just thinking the same thing over and over while Azula was doing who knew what. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“It wouldn’t be like the spas at the capital but the water was truly lovely,” Azula said. “Perhaps you should indulge yourself for once, Mai.” Her face wrinkled in something vaguely like scorn. “You’re hardly looking your best.”  

Then she turned her back on Mai and walked back to the camp they had set up, crouching in front of the pile of wood they had gathered and holding her hand in front of it, as if she could will herself to set it aflame. Her hair fell free down her back, caught in the breeze like bird wings in flight. Mai hated that she still thought Azula beautiful, hated how her voice echoed in her ears and mind and bones long after she had finally fallen silent. Hated how her smile curved like the moon when it had reached its crescent. 

Hated that, even though she knew she shouldn’t, she found herself walking in the direction that Azula had gestured, hated that after about a mile of walking she heard the bubbling water, and hated how she stood at the brink of the hot spring, the steam coiling towards her, and hated how all she could think about in that instant was stripping out of her clothes and lowering herself into the boiling waters, letting it take the weary toil of the journey from her.  

She soaked limply in the water, her eyes closed against the sinking sun.  

She couldn’t change what would happen after they were finished with their quest, she couldn’t change what would happen with Azula, or where Ty Lee would go at the end of everything, but she at least could try to enjoy this. 

Mai sighed and sank deeper into the water. 

**TY LEE**

 

Ty Lee loved sparring with Suki. She was a skilled warrior, and it took skill to spar just as it took skill to survive a real fight. Suki never hit too hard, and she never hit too softly. She always gave just enough, and Ty Lee was able to respond accordingly.  

It wasn’t like with Azula, who would push her down when they were supposedly done, and it wasn’t like with Mai who rolled her eyes and never gave enough. Mai was someone whose eyes only lit up when the fight and the struggle were real.  

So Ty Lee enjoyed sparring with Suki, who taught her new styles of combat, and Ty Lee could actually return the favor. After they had finished their session, bowing to each other with flushed faces and smiles, Ty Lee went to sit with Azula, who seemed absorbed by the sight of the pile of wood in front of her.  

Ty Lee hesitated, caught between sitting beside her or finding her own spot. Shrugging, she flung herself to the ground opposite Azula, and breathed in deeply as she felt her heart beat begin to slow. “Where’s Mai?” she asked. 

“Taking a bath,” Azula said. “There’s a hot spring just over there.” She pointed, and Ty Lee was tempted to crane her head up and look in that general direction, but she was too tired, too satisfied, and so she just smiled again. “You like sparring with Suki,” Azula said.  

Ty Lee stretched. "Of course, I do."

There was the sound of crumpling grass, and Azula’s head blocked the pink glow of the setting sun as she looked down at her. Her hair was lit strangely and beautifully by the light. After a few moments, Azula settled beside her cross legged on the grass, pulling up handfuls of it to sprinkle over Ty Lee’s bare midriff, like she was bored.  

Ty Lee pushed at her hands, weakly, and laughed. “Oh don’t, Azula, it tickles.” She brushed the grass from her stomach, and waited for Azula to keep doing it, but she didn’t. Turning her head, she saw that Azula was watching her. Her wrists were braced against the hollows of her knees. There was a downturn set to her mouth, and she was staring at a space that wasn’t quite Ty Lee. “What’s wrong, Azula?”  

Azula straightened, shaking her head so that her hair flung out around her. The jagged cut of her bangs was beginning to grow out, and when her hair was in motion, it was impossible to spot the imperfection. An ache, similar to the homesick itch that would sometimes keep Ty Lee awake, burrowed itself in her heart, and Ty Lee’s eyes stung.  

“Nothing is wrong, Ty Lee,” Azula said, smiling indulgently at her. “Why would anything be wrong?” Her smile became fixed in that strange way where it was like Azula was not even breathing. 

“You just seem—“ Ty Lee closed her eyes as she tried to find the right words. “You just seem down. Like you’re sad or like you’re missing someone.” 

Azula laughed that strange laugh that made Ty Lee uncomfortable. “Who could I possibly be missing? My thieving brother, my treacherous uncle, my father?” But then her face became serious, suddenly, and Ty Lee wondered again how Azula could switch so neatly and completely between emotions. “But I am concerned about something, Ty Lee. I’m concerned about you.” 

Something warm and fuzzy grew in the cavity of Ty Lee’s chest, and she raised herself on one elbow as she looked at Azula’s face. “But why are you concerned about me? I'm fine!”  

Azula gestured towards Suki as if that explained everything.

The feeling that had made her feel so safe disappeared instantly, and Ty Lee felt a flash of irritation as she scrambled into a sitting position. The grass itched at her bare legs. “What are you talking about?” 

Azula shrugged.  “I’ve just been trying to figure out why she even came. Yes, it’s because you’re her fellow Kyoshi Warrior, but then I wonder why she even let you join them anyway. We’re the enemy, and we humiliated them.” 

She said it like Ty Lee was a child who barely knew anything about war, despite the fact she had been practically on the front lines of the last one. “Excuse me?” Ty Lee asked.  

“I’m just saying it’s strange. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so,” Azula said, tapping her chin. “Even Sokka thought you were the enemy, didn't he? At least that’s what I heard since I wasn’t actually invited to Zuko’s coronation.” 

Ty Lee felt her face twisting in that distinctly unpleasant way that felt like it would wrinkle her face permanently. “Well, I’m not the enemy. I’m her friend. And she’s here for me. She told me so. She told me she was concerned about me specifically because you're such a terrible friend!” Ty Lee jabbed her own chest with her finger, and it hurt, dully somewhere in the knuckle but she didn't care. She was out of breath, and dizzy because of what she had said, and she braced herself for Azula's anger.  

It never came. Azula only sighed as she stared up at Ty Lee. “You're proving my point for me. You haven't forgiven me for what I've done, but we did something far worse to Suki and her warriors. When has anyone so completely forgiven another person who has wronged them so terribly? It’s a terrible thing when you can’t trust the people closest to you, and you already betrayed them. No matter what Suki says, you're not just friends, and you're not just a Kyoshi Warrior. Why would you join them when you'll never be one of them no matter how much you hide your face with that ridiculous paint?” 

Ty Lee rose to her feet and stamped them. The pieces of grass that Azula had sprinkled from her rose in little puffs under her toes. “You sound just like Mai! Just because you are both bitter old crones who don't know how to forgive doesn’t mean that everybody else is! We’ve put that stuff behind us, we’re better than that!” Ty Lee fretted with her hands, and thought back to their time at the prison. Suki hadn’t been with them, of course, but Ty Lee had taught the girls how to protect themselves from people like Ty Lee and Mai. It had been a give and take. Ty Lee had given them something important, and she had received something just as important in return. But Suki hadn’t been there. It had just been the other Kyoshi Warriors who had sworn that Ty Lee was different now, that being in prison had changed her for the better, and Suki had paused for a terrible moment before quietly welcoming her into their little group. 

What had she been thinking in that pause? 

Ty Lee looked quickly to Azula, who had leaned back slightly in the grass, her arms stretched behind her, as her eyes closed. Tufts of grass sprouted between the narrow spaces of her fingers, and Ty Lee thought about her holding something gentle, like a flower, and then she remembered that she was angry with Azula because she was back at her old games, even though they had already traveled so many miles that Ty Lee was sure they had been left behind with the rest of their baggage that had had been washed overboard.

“I’m not trying to upset you, I’m just trying to explain this to you. Suki doesn’t care what happens to us--it's not a lie, she said so herself. She cares about her home, about her precious Earth Kingdom. She’s afraid of us, afraid that we’ll do something together that will hurt her all over again. She’s not here to just babysit me, Ty Lee, but to make sure that we don’t do something terrible together. People keep saying that they’re afraid I’ll do this or I’ll do that, but face it, Ty Lee, I didn’t do any of those things alone. Some people forget about that, but Suki hasn’t. And when this is over, the three of us will be broken up permanently when you go to Kyoshi Island. Which is what Suki wants more than anything. It was a strategic move on her part, not an emotional one.” Azula sighed. “You’re always so naive, always so willing to see the good in people, Ty Lee. I’m just trying to protect you.”   

“Well, I don’t need you to protect me,” Ty Lee said. “You can keep your nasty thoughts to yourself. No wonder your aura is so grungy and terrible!” 

“Don’t let Mai hear you say that,” Azula said as Ty Lee stormed back towards Suki. “She’d hate to be compared to me in any possible way.” 

Ty Lee ignored her, instead grinding her teeth and yelping when she accidentally bit the insides of her mouth. Of course Azula would say something like this. That was the person who Azula was. She would say anything to break up a friendship that might threaten what they had once had, but Mai had said the same thing. And Mai wasn’t like Azula. She didn’t have any ulterior motives.  

Ty Lee stopped, staring at Suki who was still stretching, as if she didn’t want to join them, as if she really didn’t want to come back to their little group, like she was just finding ways to eat up the time so there wasn’t much of it left to be spent just being together, even if they had nothing to say.  

“We’re friends, right?” Ty Lee said, as she neared Suki.  

Suki glanced up. Her hair was a little longer, but still on the short side. Her eyes were soft and friendly, and Ty Lee hated, suddenly, how she had accused her. This was something that Azula did, making her doubt everything about the people around her, about herself. 

Classic Azula. And she had fallen for it, again, just like Mai had warned she would if she went on this trip.  

“Of course we’re friends,” Suki said. “You’re a Kyoshi Warrior, and so am I.”  

Ty Lee nodded, as if that should settle it, but it didn’t. Instead, she thought about the day when they had disembarked from the merchant vessel, when Suki had stopped Azula from stealing the ostrich horse, and how Suki had really taken charge in that moment so that she could show them the scar.

Of course, that was always how it was going to be. Azula couldn’t lead them. Who knew what ruin she would lead them to, and Ty Lee didn’t want Azula to be her leader, not anymore. They were equals now, even if she was still a fancy princess. But Suki called all the shots except where they went next. Suki talked to them like she expected them to just try to take over the Earth Kingdom all over again, warning them as she made an example out of Azula.  

And maybe it was fair for Suki to think that. Maybe it was fair for Suki to still be angry. But Ty Lee didn't know what to do with that. Saying she never wanted to have taken over Ba Sing Se or that it hadn't been her idea rang hollow and pathetic.

“What’s the matter, Ty Lee?”  

Ty Lee dropped to the ground, her knees against her chest. “I’m confused. Mai and Azula keep telling me that I don’t belong with you. They keep saying that I’m not really a Kyoshi Warrior because of what passed between us. And Azula saying it is of course, typical, because that’s who she is, but Mai said it too.” 

“When did Mai say it?” 

Ty Lee flushed, hating herself. “A bit ago. Before we left.” It had bothered her when Mai had said it, but it had bothered her more when Azula had said it, and that bothered her even more, and being bothered meant that her aura couldn't be pink. 

“When I say we’re friends, Ty Lee, it means that I don’t see you as an enemy. But, let’s be honest. I don’t know you that well. I wasn’t in prison with you, and I only really know you as Azula’s friend, one of the trio that ambushed us and then dressed in our uniforms to gain access to Ba Sing Se.”   

Ty Lee looked at the grass between her toes and winced.  

“I came because you are part of the Kyoshi Warriors, but I also came to keep an eye on the three of you. Do you really think that Zuko would have let the three of you go if I hadn’t come along?” 

Ty Lee looked up at her, and was surprised to see that Suki’s eyes were soft. “You don’t need to be afraid of us. You don’t need to be afraid of me.” 

“And I’m not,” Suki said. “But I’m the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors for a reason. I don’t think that you would purposely take over Ba Sing Se again, and I don’t think that you’re secretly working for Ozai or something ridiculous like that. But I know that the Kyoshi Warriors have been hurt by you, and I know that the Earth Kingdom has been hurt by the Fire Nation. I don't know what that means for us. I hope you can understand because I barely understand myself. I just know that I feel so conflicted and that I don’t know the right words. I don’t even know if there are right words. I only know that I don't have a bond or a shared experience with you, and if you're with the Kyoshi Warriors, then I have to have that. I was hoping this trip would be that shared experience.”  

Ty Lee lowered her eyes again. “Will this always be between us?” Her voice sounded too small and too quiet, and she wished she did not sound so sad.  

“I don’t know,” Suki said. “It will be easier when this is all over. When we’re back on Kyoshi Island. We can think, and we can breathe. But Kyoshi Island is our home, and your home is in the Fire Nation. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I miss my home. Don’t you think that you’ll miss yours? Don’t you think that you’ll want to come back to it sooner rather than later?”  

Ty Lee frowned. She had always thought that it would be easy to come and see Mai and Azula again whenever she wanted. But that wasn’t true. They had barely managed one journey between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, how could she so blithely think she could see them whenever she wanted as if she had a flying bison like the Avatar? “I don’t know,” she said. 

Suki sat down with her. “You don’t need to know right now. We’re all still just trying to figure out this whole thing together. Things are confusing, but one day, they won’t be.”   

Ty Lee knew she shouldn’t be surprised. She knew she shouldn’t be hurt. 

But for some reason she was. And for some reason, she didn’t want to get up to leave, and so she didn’t, and they sat together in silence until the sun was down and the stars had come out. 

**AZULA**

“The cave of two lovers?” Azula asked. Debris was piled at the entrance, but someone had moved part of it away, but not all of it, leaving just enough space for a person to scramble through. It was as if they had tried to do the whole job but had tired and given up. Why wouldn’t they just finish it? And, as Azula stood on her tip toes, peering through the debris into the tunnel, she saw it was dark, a pitch blackness that pooled her vision and made her skin crawl, as her fingers whispered together, as she imagined the pillars of blue flame she once could have created to drive the darkness away. She stepped back and looked again at the barricaded entrance. There were the remnants of sculptures in the rubble. A stone eye peered at her in the light, like it knew she was helpless against the dark.

Suki nodded. “It’s a nice little shortcut. There are so many Earth Kingdom stories about this cave.” She put her palm against the rock and smiled.  

“It sounds silly,” Mai said. She hung back, her arms folded across her chest. “The cave of two lovers? Why would they meet in such a place?” 

Suki looked back over her shoulder. "They didn't. They made this labyrinth to hide their love so they could be together."

“I think it’s romantic!” Ty Lee held her hands clasped over her chest. “The cave of two lovers! It has such a lovely ring to it, as if anything could happen!”  

“We’re going to need a torch,” Azula said, making sure to keep her voice cool, casual. She didn’t care they needed a torch. A torch was a natural thing to need.  

Suki shook her head. “We won’t need that. We don’t need fire to light the way for us.” 

Irritation prickled Azula’s skin as she planted her feet and balled her hands into fists against the spurs of her hips. “I refuse to walk into the darkness like a fool!” She forced herself to keep calm. It didn't matter if the cave reminded her of everything that she had lost. Suki didn't need to know that. None of them needed to know that.

Mai sighed. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I agree with Azula. I’m not going in there without a light.” 

Suki looked at them for a moment, before her head tipped back and she laughed. Her voice rang against the rocks, and shivered the air around them. And then she was smiling at them, broadly, without malice, as she asked, “Are the strongest girls of the Fire Nation scared of the dark?” 

“I wouldn’t say scared,” Ty Lee said, “more like, nervous or maybe uncertain or maybe even a tiny bit reluctant?” 

“It’s sensible to want a light,” Mai said. 

Azula nodded. “It’s not a crazy thing to ask for. We have things to do, things which don't include getting lost in the dark.” 

Suki held out her hands, as if they needed to be placated. “Just because we won’t be bringing our own light doesn’t mean there won’t be any light at all.” She stepped towards Azula and Azula neatly stepped out of her way. “The cave and its labyrinth of tunnels teaches us something important: that love is brightest in the dark. Trust me, we won't need a light.”

"Why?" Azula asked. "Because we love each other so much?" 

Ty Lee melted as she clasped her hands again, eyes shining as she ignored Azula. “Oh, what a beautiful thing to say!” 

Mai rolled her eyes. “It’s a metaphor, Ty Lee. Love isn’t really brightest in the dark. Lucky for us. It means something else, and Suki knows what it really means.”

Suki smiled. "I might."  

“Mai is right,” Azula said, avoiding Ty Lee’s gaze. “This is ridiculous.” 

“Maybe it won't be as bad as you think. But if you want to go the long way around, we can certainly do that though I think not taking advantage of my expertise would be a mistake." Suki looked at Azula and the other girls.

Azula glared at the half-cleared entrance through the tunnel and then back at Suki. She thought they were scared, well she was wrong. And besides they were in a hurry. "We'll go through your stupid tunnel," Azula said.

"And I trust you," Ty Lee said, smiling at Suki in a way that made Azula roll her eyes.

"I'm so excited," Mai added in that flat voice of hers.

Suki smiled at them. "Great! I promise that you will not be lost wandering in the dark, and that we will be able to find our way through to the other side.” She gripped the rocks and hauled herself over its ledge as she crawled over the debris. “It’s a bit of a drop at the bottom, so be careful,” she called out as the Fire Nation girls stared at each other, still on the other side.  

Ty Lee shrugged and followed Suki. 

Mai and Azula lingered at the entrance, both their arms folded across their chests, both glowering at each other. 

“After you,” Mai said dully.  

Beyond them, Ty Lee was laughing delightedly. “Oh, Suki, you were right! C’mon Mai, c’mon Azula, come and see! It's so beautiful!” 

Azula turned and gripped the rocks. Her hands were slippery and slick with sweat, and for a moment she was afraid she was going to fall, that Mai might catch her, that Mai would fall to the ground under Azula’s weight, and that they would lie stunned in each other’s arms as they struggled for breath. 

The image was hateful, and Azula scrambled over the debris as quickly as she could. The darkness pooled thickly and, even though Suki had warned them about the sudden drop, it came upon her suddenly as a rock slipped loose under her weight, sending her tumbling.  

Her stomach lurched in that queasy free-fall way, and Azula tucked herself as Ty Lee had shown her, when they were young, and she landed rolling on her shoulder, vaulting to her feet like she had meant to do that, like she hadn’t slipped or fallen, like everything was fine. 

Ty Lee gripped her hands, and pointed towards the ceiling. “Look! Look!” 

Luminescent rocks glowed from the ceiling of the tunnel. In their sickly light, Azula could see Suki standing underneath them, one wrist braced against her hip, the other hanging relaxed against her thigh. She was smiling in that I-told-you-so way.  

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ty Lee gasped as Mai joined them like a tall shadow. 

“It’s a glowing rock,” Mai said. 

“We follow them, and they'll lead us to the other side,” Suki said as she took off down the path.  

Because Ty Lee asked, Suki told them the story of Oma and Shu, those star-crossed lovers who dared to love even when their villages were at war. Traitors, Azula thought dully as she listened.  

The man died in the war, of course, and Oma ended the war with her earthbending, and then they built Omashu and everything was fine after that because that was the way of things in these types of stories. There was never that lingering feeling of unease, twisting through the center of their being like steaming tea, there wasn’t wordless resentment that was hidden away until there was no space to hide it anymore. 

Azula’s hands clenched into fists as they followed the light of the green rocks. It led them to a round hallway, and they crept through it and saw the tomb of the two lovers beneath them. Azula moved forward to see the painted mural of the story that Suki had already told them. Whoever had depicted the story had loved them, she realized, as she bent down and blew the dust away so that the pigments of the paint became a little brighter, a little realer. 

“Love is brightest in the dark,” Ty Lee said. Azula stood straight and saw Ty Lee standing in front of a large carving of two figures kissing. Her braid was long, and her hand hovered over the glistening stone, as if she wanted to touch but couldn’t or wouldn’t. 

“I always thought about this place on Kyoshi Island,” Suki said, “but I never thought I’d see it. Earthbending was learned from love, and I would think about that when I slept under the statue of Avatar Kyoshi as a child, wondering who she had loved.” 

“You’re not an earthbender,” Azula said. “Why does it matter?” 

Suki shrugged as she turned away from the image. “I don’t know. I just know it does.”  

Azula went to Ty Lee, intending to tell her that they needed to go, that they had already lingered too long and every second wasted was that much longer before they reached Ba Sing Se. But she hadn't realized just how large the engraving was, and now that she was up close, she found herself staring at them too.  

It made her uncomfortable, it made her feel trapped to see those two figures so close together. She wondered if her mother and father had ever been so close, and could not remember them without the table and the tea between them.   

Of course, she had seen Mai and Zuko this close, had interrupted them because they shouldn’t be together, because Mai shouldn’t prefer Zuko’s company to hers, and Azula squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered kissing Chan before he had left her on the balcony.  

It had been quick, it hadn’t meant anything, she saw that now even though she had tried to make it into something it wasn’t, into something that mattered before he had left her so quickly behind. 

She glared again at the depiction of Oma and Shu. How could they be so close? Their eyes were shut, as if they trusted each other not to do anything when they weren’t looking. How stupid could they be? Something like panic, an awareness of how deep they were underground, of how close she was to the girls around her, of the proximity and weight of the caverns, grew in her as a cold sweat broke against her skin.  

The space between her and Ty Lee was a physical weight, and Azula knew it would break her to her knees, because she wasn’t strong enough to bear it.   

Ty Lee reached through the scant distance between them as if it was nothing, and held Azula’s hand. The touch turned Azula so that they faced each other, their own profiles in parallel with the engraving of Oma and Shu.  

“They were probably enemies once,” Ty Lee said, her voice soft, “and they learned to love each other.” 

She looked at Azula like it meant something between them, and Azula remembered Ember Island, and she remembered Zuko teasing her, and she remembered how badly she had wanted Ty Lee to be there with her, and then Ty Lee had made her choice, just like Mai, just like Zuko, just like Ursa, just like Ozai.  

Ty Lee was waiting for her. Normally she had so much to say. Why was she letting the silence stretch into another labyrinth between them?

Azula put on her smile. “It’s just a story meant to amuse little children.” She slipped her hands from Ty Lee and went towards the other end of the tomb, where there was an open door leading through the mountains. The green light lit the way like sickly reminders that even when she was through the tunnels, there was still the road to Ba Sing Se, the task of finding her mother, of finding her bending—but there was no finding things that were gone or filling the holes they left behind.  

“Alright, Azula,” Ty Lee said, softly. “We’re right behind you.” 

They left the cave of two lovers, and the sun was not as high as Azula thought it would be. They had not been in the cave for as long as she had thought, and she wondered why, when had that happened because she was excellent at counting the passing of the hours. But she had lost her sense of it, and she stared at the nub of shadow her body cast against the ground as she counted her steps and tracked the passage of the sun. 

“Are you alright, Azula?” Ty Lee asked. 

“I’m fine,” Azula said, quickly. “Everything is fine. I just want to reach Ba Sing Se as quickly as possible.”  

Ty Lee nodded and they walked until it was dark and when it was dark, Azula could not sleep as she stared into the sky and identified the long lists of constellations she had learned as a child until the sun rose on the horizon, washing the stars away in a haze of pink as Ty Lee leaned over her, and wished her a good morning with her brightest smile, just like she always did. 


	13. Interlude: Fear Is The Only Way

The day that Azula and Zuko would perform for their father dawned cold and grey, and it was hard to feel the sun on their skin as they waited for it to rise. The ocean was a cold slick grey, and the wind made her shiver. Still, Azula didn’t try to assure him that everything would be fine when she saw his face drawn tight with a worry, while a nervous sweat stuck to his skin in a vaguely satisfying way. Besides, even if she had been inclined to reassure him, there really wouldn’t be anything to say.

She had taught him, after all. It was not the way of things for the student to overcome the master, especially over the course of a mere month. There was no way he was better than she—but that still didn’t mean that he hadn’t improved a lot, because he had. The point was to impress that upon their father, to demonstrate that their family was strong, and that Zuko would not embarrass him as a prince, as his heir, and as his son.

It wasn’t like they were going to fight an Agni Kai because Zuko would truly lose if that were the case. She smiled at him as she watched him go through the forms she’d taught him, the most basic sets for him to establish his root, not just physically but emotionally as well.

Maybe the day would come for them to fight an Agni Kai, but when that time came, she would defeat him. But today was not that day and, for the moment, she could wait. If everything turned out as she had planned, the day would never come--but she would prepare for it, just in case.

They bowed to each other after they finished their sets, and he said, “Thank you, Azula. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“You’re right—you couldn’t,” Azula said, smiling. “But don’t worry about that now. Let’s go to the beach where they’ll be waiting.”

Together, they ran down the small knoll that rose behind their house. The path was still wet with morning dew, and they went carefully. Eventually, the path turned from stony rock to sand. The beach that surrounded their house was secluded, and though there were times that people would find their way on the spit of sand that Azula considered theirs, they tended to prefer the more open beaches that were more welcoming for swimmers and sun bathers. Azula liked that just fine.

Their parents were already waiting for them, seated in chairs that Li and Lo had brought from the house. They stood behind them, their grey hair tied up in the same way, their hands folded in the same way, their eyes meeting furtively as they only barely turned their heads. Azula wondered what they were thinking, then decided she didn't care.

Father's eyes were on a piece of parchment, and Mom's gaze was unfocused, eyes half closed, while her hands were clenched around the ornately carved wood of her chair. It was as if she were bracing for something, for something terrible at that, and Azula nearly laughed, except she couldn't because Father didn't even look excited--neither of them did. This was her's and Zuko's moment. They had worked hard for this, and it looked like their parents didn't even care.

“Wait,” she hissed, as she caught a glimpse of Zuko’s crooked tunic. She straightened it for him, swiped the bit of sand that clung to the knees of his breeches, and then she did the same to her own clothes. She smoothed her hair and made sure it was perfect.

A princess always looked her best.

She looked at Zuko, and his face was already crumbling, doubt fracturing his face as he looked back at her. It was now or never. He had to realize his potential sometime. He had to become the prince he was always supposed to be some day.

“Shall we begin?” Azula asked, her voice ringing clearly. It made her sound older than she actually was. Good.

“What will you show us?” Mom said, her eyes opening fully to look at them as she smiled.

“We’ll perform the most basic sets,” Azula said, pacing in a circle around her brother. Her footsteps left a damp, sunken ring around him. “Then we’ll work our way up through the more complex forms.” She paused, her hand relaxed as her hand gestured, almost lazily, towards her parents. “I’m ahead of my class and now, thanks to my instruction, Zuko is too. Together,” she said as orange flame hovered in tight balls over her hand, “we’ll put on such a show, you’ll be blinded by the brightness of our fire, your skin will be scorched from the heat. It will be like the time the fire ravaged the forests in the southern islands, only this time, we’ll be in control, and then at the end of it all, Zuko and I will determine who really is the better firebender.” Her eyes closed partly, like the cats that waited for the mice to show as they lounged in the summer sun, feigning sleep.

“Hmm,” Father said, rolling his parchment as he finally gave them his attention. “This sounds like showmanship, not real firebending.”

Azula flushed just as Mom said, softly, “Ozai—“

Zuko turned a shade paler.

“As I told you,” Father said, “my father, Firelord Azulon, for whom you are named, young Azula, demanded that Iroh and I practice against each other instead of with each other. That way we could more easily learn to identify our weaknesses while providing good sport for us and those who watched. Don’t you agree that that sounds more interesting, Azula, than this spectacle you've dreamed up?”

Mom spoke before Azula could answer. “Ozai, the children should do what they like. This will be just as engaging. I love watching them whatever they do--don't you?”

Father’s lips grew thin as he shot a look at Mom, a look that made her put her hand over wrists, clutching at the folds of her robe. “And what use is knowledge without application?”

“There’s no need to argue,” Azula said, interjecting. “Of course, Zuko and I are going to fight after we show you how well we’ve come on our sets. We've learned so much. We can't possibly show you everything in one fight.” Their father had not watched them bend for an age, and as far as Azula was concerned, she would keep him here for as long as she could. Zuko had agreed to her plan, just as she had expected him to. He wasn't looking forward to fighting her at all, even though Azula had promised to let him win. He had even thought that their plan to show off their routines would make their father forget about his decision that they fight each other, but Azula had known that he would not forget. And she had been right, as she was always right.

“I do not have time to watch you for hours,” Ozai said, yawning. “Fight each other now, and let me see what you have learned.”

“As you wish, Father,” Azula said as she bowed to him if only to hide her glare.

She turned back to Zuko, smiling. They had not choreographed their fight because they had been afraid their father would realize it wasn't real. They had only agreed that Azula would lose to Zuko. “Scared, Zuko?” Azula called.

“You wish,” he hurled back.

Part of the plan, of course.

They bowed, and settled in their offensive positions. Father had returned to his scroll, and Mom leaned anxiously forward, as if she was actually afraid something terrible would happen to Zuko.

Zuko was in a good stance, just the way she had taught him. Azula could see his measured breathing, the way his chest rose and fell, powering the fire in his belly. His eyes were soft, rooted on her face. He would be fine if he remembered to be the person he was supposed to be, the person who could beat her.

She realized, suddenly, that he finally trusted her to keep her promise to let him be better than her.

It was a strange feeling, but Azula shook it from her as Zuko started the match with a fireball that was barely hot. With a circular motion of her arms, she dispelled the flame easily. She returned the blow, her two fingers guiding her chi up and out of her, turning it into fire.

Zuko dodged it neatly, and tried to taunt her. "Is that all you have, Azula?"

Azula scoffed. He’d just dodged it. He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t used his bending against it, not like she had. Anybody could just dodge it, like Mai and Ty Lee. Father wasn’t going to be impressed with a dodged fireball.

Their father glanced up and, when she saw, she shot out a complex series that finished with a kick. Zuko wouldn’t be able to dodge them all, and he was forced to bend the flame—either to dispel it or to send it back towards her.

She avoided some of the fire he sent her way, but she allowed one to hit her, and she staggered under its force until she landed with a soft plop on her bottom. She flushed. She hadn’t expected it to hit so hard. She hadn’t expected her garments to smoke.

Her eyes swept the scene. She saw her mother leaning forward in her chair, her hands clasped like she was worried. She saw the minute shaking of her father’s head as his eyes once more turned to the scroll in his lap. She saw the way that Zuko’s muscles were beginning to ease their tension, as if he were about to drop out of his stance, out of his root, just because she was on the ground.

What an idiot. It was almost as if he wanted to go and help her, when instead he should be pressing his advantage.

She flung her feet out, body twisting in a circle, and a wave of flame orbited from her center. Zuko jumped back as she leaped forwards, forcing him to retreat as his root continued to break, until he lost his balance and fell backwards. He would have hit the ground if Azula had not gripped him by his garments, hauling him upright, flipping him so his back was to her front, her arm forcing his up and behind his back. “Come on, Zuko!” she hissed. “You need to do better than this.” She pushed him then, and he staggered forward, rubbing his arm, as he glared at her.

Good. It would fuel his fire, make it hot and bright.

She smiled that curling smile, and advanced slowly.

He couldn’t do anything to stop her, and fire jetted from her firsts and feet as she flared towards him. He fell backwards again, and this time she didn’t try to catch him as he landed on the sand and rock.

As she advanced towards him, she wondered what Zuko was thinking, because what she had seen wasn't impressive at all. He didn't have a fighter’s spirit in her, not like she did, but there was one thing that he could still do as he sat there like a useless lump of rock. "Firebending comes from the breath," she said to him, quietly, so that their father wouldn't hear. She waited, standing over him, shaking her head as fire flared from her hand, bracing herself as he finally realized what she wanted him to do. His feet plowed into her stomach, and she doubled over as her fire spluttered out.

While she gasped for breath, he climbed quickly to his feet, and for a moment, both their eyes slid towards their parents even though Azula knew she should keep her focus on Zuko—even though she also knew he probably would not press his new-found advantage.

Mom's head was shaking. She looked pale. Azula wondered why she didn't look happier. Zuko was winning.

Father put his parchment aside, and he stood to his feet. “Is that all you have for me?” he demanded. “From the way you spoke, you implied that you would be able to impress me!”

Azula looked at Zuko, willed him to understand, and he did. He renewed his assault, and she found herself truly losing ground as he punched hot bursts of fire from his fists. It was uncontrolled, wild, like his entire being was screaming. Azula struggled to dispel the flames, her body twisting as she dodged the ones she couldn't bend away from her. Pain twinged in her side as she pulled a muscle, but she ignored it. It didn't matter.

But their father was not satisfied. “Who am I supposed to be proud of? Zuko, who can barely bend?” Azula slid under an curving arc of flame Zuko sent towards her. Sweat streamed down her face and stung her eyes.

“Come on, Zuko,” she whispered. “You have to show him you have more than this!”

Zuko redoubled his efforts. Azula's skin cracked rom the heat.

“Am I supposed to be proud of you, Azula? You won’t finish this charade once and for all. You could have ended it before it even began. This is shameful. An embarrassment!”

Azula bit her lip. She had promised. She had to let Zuko win because it was the only way so that their father took what was his.

“Have you learned nothing?” she said, rapidly to Zuko, but not loud enough that their parents might hear. “The only person who is proud of you is Mom, and you know she doesn’t count. Why are you so weak, Zuko, why aren’t you good at anything? Didn’t you hear what he said? He’s not proud of you, doesn’t that make you angry?” She reached through flame that blistered her knuckles and pushed him hard against his chest. “You know what he says about you, that you were lucky to be born, as if he wishes you weren’t his son! He was ready to abandon you, because he thought you couldn’t bend! Are you going to prove himself to you so that he’ll love you like he loves me, or are you going to sit there crying like a coward?”

Zuko screamed, and he pushed her back, his palms searing her clothes as they smoked into embers. Her hurled fire at her and she returned it flame for flame. She could smell her hair burn, and she smiled as she met him head on, and they fought and struggled. He struck her, and she blocked his blow so their arms locked, fire jetting from their fists. Zuko struggled to push her back, and she put up enough of a fight for it to look real. It wasn't hard. She was tired, and he was bigger than her.

They glanced back towards their parents. Their mother had risen to her feet, like she wanted to stop them but was too scared to, but their father was shaking his head in disgust, as he was already walking away from them, back to his house, back to his work, away from them.

“No!” Azula cried. She kicked Zuko back with a blast that made him cry out her name, and she redoubled her assault. “Fight me, fight me for real!” she hissed. “I can’t do this alone—I need your help. You don’t need to worry about hurting me, I can take care of myself.”

Her fire rimmed with blue, heat scorched her hand and her face.

“Is that still the best you can do?” she mocked. “We’ll be here all day unless you do something better. If you don’t get better, one day Father is going to find a way to get rid of you, and I’ll be an only child, and you’ll be nobody, Zuzu!”

Zuko ran towards her, and she sent a blast of fire his way. At the last moment, he hunched his shoulders, and he drove his head into her belly. He was larger than her, heavier than her, and the blow sent her sailing backwards. She landed hard on her back, and that knocked the rest of the air out of her. She gasped for breath in the sand, slowly trying to roll over so she could climb to her feet. A low wall of fire, flames flickering orange and red, surrounded her, penning her so she would be unable to maneuver, and then Zuko stood above her, his hand pulsing with bright, hot flame as if to strike.

But he wouldn’t strike, not even if she demanded he do it. There was something wrong with his face. He was flushed with excitement, with victory, but there was a reluctance in his eyes, as if he took no real joy from this.

Time enough to work on that later, she thought, as she nodded at him slightly. He’d finally managed it, finally started acting like a real firebender.

Father should be proud, she thought, as she acknowledged her defeat. The fire surrounding her burned to embers. When he tried to help her up, she glared at him, and he jerked his hand up to run through his hair while she scrambled to her feet by herself. Then they bowed to each other.

Mom was running towards them, and she hugged Zuko fiercely as she ran her hands through his hair, as she wiped the ash from his cheek with her thumbs.

But father was already gone. He had left and, panicked, Azula wondered when he had left. Had he left before or after Zuko had “beaten” her? It had almost been real at the end, she thought. It wasn't a complete lie. Anybody watching would have thought it was real.

“I’m so proud of you,” his mother said. Her hands were heavy on Zuko's shoulders, and he was smiling. “I loved watching you.” She looked towards Azula. "Azula--"

"Where'd Dad go?" Azula asked, scanning for him.

Ursa's face pinched and she said, "I don't know. Probably to his study. You look thirsty--let's go get some tea." She put her arm around Zuko’s shoulders, and held out her other hand towards Azula.

Azula walked past her as they went back to the house. She pulled at her hair, which had become tangled during the fight. Where had he gone? When had he left? It hadn’t worked. It was supposed to be different. Father was supposed to be lavishing praise on Zuko, and Mom was supposed to be comforting Azula because she had lost and she always praised and comforted Zuko when he lost. But she had gone to Zuko as she always did, no matter what happened apparently.

What was happening? Everything had been planned so perfectly, and it was still falling apart.

"I think we have some fresh mango. Do you think that would make a lovely treat after this morning?" Ursa asked. Zuko smiled, nodding earnestly. "Azula? Would you like some too?"

"I'm not hungry," Azula said. It wasn't fair. She had planned every step of this perfectly. It should have worked.

"Are you sure?" Ursa said. "You worked so hard this morning. It would be nice of you to join us, don't you think, Zuko?" She tucked him closer and smiled down at him.

Azula rolled her eyes, and said nothing. When Ursa and Zuko followed Li and Lo to the dining area, Azula slipped away from them. She found their father in his study. Peeking through the thin red curtains that separated the study from the rest of the house, she watched him work. He looked very focused. His worked seemed very important. She pushed through the cloth, her feet scuffing against the stone floor, and waited for him to notice her until she pretended to sneeze.

“Azula,” he said without looking at her.

“You left before I could ask if you liked what you saw,” Azula said. "Didn't Zuko do well? I think some of the sand may have even turned to glass. It certainly shined bright enough. Did you see how my fire was nearly blue?"

“What I saw was you losing to your brother.”

It stung, but Azula rallied. “So you see he’s improved. Doesn’t that make you happy?” She smiled, though he didn’t turn around to see it.

“I am happy when my children do not lie,” her father said. “I know what I saw out there. I know you let Zuko win. I just don’t understand why.”

He finally faced her, and she saw the cold fire sparking in his eyes. A chill crept down the hollow of her spine. How could she explain to him without letting him know about all the things she saw and knew? If he knew, he would be embarrassed, angry. She folded her arms, and tried to speak casually. “I was just trying to be nice, Father. It’s not as if we’ve been happy lately. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” She twisted folds of curtain through her fingers.

“For a long time, I thought I had been cursed with one weak child.” Her father turned away from her. “I did not realize that I was cursed with two.”

The words struck her, and Azula could barely breathe. “I’m not like Zuko,” she said, hotly.

“What would your grandfather say if he knew you had let Zuko win? It was a falsehood, and that he went along with it to buy my favor makes me even more disappointed in him, and in you. I have already given up on your brother. He will never be as strong as you. He will never be as good as you. Don’t let him drag you down with him. Don’t let mercy or pity or sympathy weaken you, stop you from becoming the person I know you can be. Someone who is strong, someone who will inspire fear in her enemies instead of mockery. Someone born to rule, like the Firelords before you. People will take advantage of kindness, so don’t let them. Fear is the only way to be strong. And your brother should fear you, Azula. He should fear your skill, he should fear how he cannot measure up to the standards you have set. He should fear you—not look for you to help when he cannot even help himself.”

Azula put her wrist to her eyes. She hated that she was about to cry. “But Father—“

He waved her away, and the flourish of his hand silenced her as surely as if he had ordered her to be silent. She ducked through the curtain swiftly, and it flapped at her knees. She ran as fast as she could throughout the house, but there was only Li and Lo, who called after her, who asked if she was alright, and what did they know, they didn't know anything, and she ran from them until she was alone.

She skidded to a stop outside. Zuko and his mother were on the beach, relaxing on a blanket. They cradled bowls of mango in their laps. He was showing her a shell he had found, and she was holding it in her hand like it was the most precious thing.

Grinding her teeth, she flung away so that she would not have to see them together. She ran along the paths that wound up the mountains, the volcanoes that had long since died, but ash still puffed beneath her feet. And when she reached the top, she fell to her knees, beat the earth with her fists, and sobbed as she screamed blue-hearted fire from her mouth.


	14. Tea at the Jasmine Dragon

It was a long journey to Ba Sing Se. Eventually, there came a time where Azula was allowed to wander some distance away. Never far enough to truly disappear, but far enough where she could pretend she was alone. She would find something to occupy her hands, her restless fingers that could no longer burn. Once, she found a sprig of springy wood she shaped into a bow with a knife she had stolen from one of the villages they had passed through. Suki didn’t know about that, of course. She strung the bow with thread and she made arrows to match.

Azula made the weapon because she was tired of their diet of dried food. She was prepared to fight to keep the bow when she dropped her first catch beside Mai was already boiling the rice. But Mai looked at it for a long moment, and shrugged, as she reached for the game. Azula squatted beside her. "Nothing to say?" She pretended to be distraught, her hand over her chest. "Of course, Azula can't have a weapon! She's crazy and dangerous and will kill us all!"

Mai sighed. "You could have killed us any time while we slept. With that stolen knife or with your hands or with poison." Mai raised her eyes and looked at Azula as if she knew something. Azula focused on that look, and wondered what Mai knew, what exactly she was indicating, but if she asked anything about it, it would show Mai that she'd had a landed a verbal blow, and so Azula forced herself to keep calm and to say nothing.

"Would you like the knife, Mai?" Azula asked. "To make up for the ones you lost in the ocean?"

Mai lowered the raw meat into the pot, and rubbed dried spices between her fingers to release the flavor. "I don't want anything from you. Not even your gifts of stolen things." 

Azula laughed, which drew Ty Lee's attention. "Did you make that?" she asked, pointing to the bow.

"Of course, I did," Azula said. "I'm very talented."

Ty Lee simpered as she sat beside her. “You’re just the most talented person that I know.”

Mai rolled her eyes, but Azula just smiled at Ty Lee, who was staring at her as intently as she had in the Cave of Two Lovers. Azula turned away.

Suki joined them, and asked if she could look at the bow. Azula nodded, expecting perhaps for Suki to throw it into the fire, but she could always make another one. Besides, she wasn't ready to fight Suki yet. Not with Ty Lee and Mai clustered so closely around her. Besides, Suki couldn't really stop her, not in the long run. Azula could wait. Azula had waited her whole life. She was used to it. 

But Suki looked at it, pretended to draw it, and nodded as she gave it back to Azula. She gripped it in her hands, tight so that her knuckles ached, as Suki went to sit on the other side of the fire. "Perhaps I should come with you on these hunts," she said mildly.

Of course Suki didn't trust her. If it had been Mai or Ty Lee, Suki wouldn't have even bothered to invite herself. "There's no need," Azula said, smiling as winningly as she could, the one some had once described as nice. The one that could make her look like any other normal girl.

Mai almost laughed, until she seemed to remember she was incapable of it, and she started coughing instead. Ty Lee thumped her back as she looked at Azula. 

"But you're more than welcome to come," Azula amended, and looked away when Ty Lee smiled at her.

So Suki accompanied Azula on her hunts. They didn't speak, which was just fine with Azula, because it scared the game and talking was stupid anyway. Still, once as they prepared their prey to be eaten, Azula watched Suki's skilled fingers, and wondered why she was still here. She had already said that she didn't care what happened to Azula, so why was she here getting her hands dirty when she could have just put a stop to it as easily as she had put a stop to any of the other plans that Azula had come up with. 

Azula looked at Suki out of the corner of her eyes, and wondered what she was planning, what she was up to. Something was going to happen in Ba Sing Se--she could feel it. Suki was going to turn her over to the authorities, who would be more than delighted to have the person who had practically single-handedly conquered their city in their incompetent hands. Or perhaps she was planning something more elaborate, and intended to leave Azula dead behind her. She'd blame it on a hunting accident. Those things happened. Azula tried to see if Suki carried any weapons but she couldn't see anything. But then, Suki still hadn't seen her hidden knife so that meant nothing.

Azula saw her hand begin to tremble, and so she clenched her fist, hiding it behind her.

And then, on a hot day, on a day where they weren't able to find anything, they found a river. Their skin burned, so they set their shoes aside, and they waded in the water. It ran low because of the hot summer, just barely lapping at their ankles, but still Suki smiled. "The water is nice and cool," she said.

Azula looked at Suki with her eyes closed and thought about how easy it would be to just push her face front into the water. There were stones, and the water was low. She would easily crack her head. Azula looked at the sun until her vision bled with spots. "It's because it's running so fast," she said as her toes curved around a pebble. "Probably running from its problems." She thought of her father. She thought of Zuko. She thought of herself, walking across the Earth Kingdom for her bending or for her mother, neither of which she was expecting to find but it was easier being here than in the Fire Nation capital trapped in her own room.

But Suki laughed. "I get it." Azula looked at her. "I just remembered, you like puns. Avatar fan girls," and Suki was laughing again. "It wasn't funny at the time, but--" Suki kept laughing, not uncontrollably, but softly, as if something was slowly unwinding inside her.

Azula watched her, taking one small step backwards away from her. It wasn't that funny, and besides, laughter didn’t mean anything. Father had laughed when he had burned Zuko. He had laughed after he had been crowned Firelord. But Suki would notice eventually that she wasn't laughing, and then she'd ask her why, and Azula would not know what to say, and the helpless feeling would come back, even though it never went away, not really. Azula tried laughing with Suki, like Ty Lee had shown her once, a long time ago.

Suki had never heard it before, so maybe she would think it was real. Maybe she did because, for a brief moment, she smiled at Azula as she suggested they pick up their things and find Mai and Ty Lee.

Then came the day where they arrived at the ferry. They made camp, even though it was noon, to rest so that they could continue the last length of their journey refreshed.

“I can’t believe we’re almost there,” Ty Lee said, stretching luxuriously. “My feet are so tired!”

“Finally,” Mai said. “I thought we'd never arrive.”

“We need to make sure not to call you Azula,” Ty Lee said, slipping her hands through Azula’s. “We don’t want them to execute you.”

“They wouldn’t,” Suki said, as she poked the fire with a stick. “Not without a trial.”

Azula scoffed. “Trials don’t mean anything.” She remembered some of the ones she had seen in the Fire Nation. They promise of justice hadn’t protected anybody. Zuko would probably change that though, since he was such a goody-goody.

“Not here,” Suki said. “Maybe in the Fire Nation.”

“Then I suppose I just imagined Lake Laogi,” Azula said. “I wish I had had more time with the Dai Li the last time I was here. Their methods of persuasion were fascinating. Purifying, in its way. They used a candle flame, did you know, to brainwash their more troublesome citizens, burning away the thoughts they didn’t want you to think.” Azula sighed. “They really were firebenders at heart.”

"That was different," Suki insisted.

"Whatever you say," Azula said, smiling serenely and sweetly.

“Where should we go first?” Ty Lee said. “If your mother came here as a refugee, she would have found Zuko for sure! They would have both been in the poor circle of town.”

“Of course she would have,” Azula said. “Which is why we’re going to see my uncle first. Zuko thinks his uncle has his best interests at heart, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had kept them apart for Zuko’s own good. Why would you want to go back to the Fire Nation when you could just have Mom back?” Azula kicked a stone into the fire.

Mai’s chin jutted sharply towards her. “You mean Zuko wouldn't want to go back to the Fire Nation if he could have her back.”

Azula rolled her eyes. “That is who we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“But that’s not what you said,” Mai said. “You worded it so that anybody could feel like that, not just Zuko. Like you could actually feel like that."

Azula stood to her feet, her hands clenched into fist. "What did you say? I would never feel like that. I wasn't the one who was banished--Zuko and Mom got themselves banished! They deserved each other. I always come back to where I belong. It's Zuko who's always running away. He even ran away from you, as I recall."

Ty Lee laughed, as she always did, as she pulled Azula back down to sit beside her. “Oh, Mai. Even if she did say it like that, Princess Azula’s not like other people!” Her fingers tucked Azula’s hair behind the shell of her ear. “If you had to choose between your mother or being Firelord, we’d know which you’d choose, don’t we?”

“Of course you do,” Azula said quickly.

"It's a good thing you didn't put her friends on the list, Ty Lee," Mai said. "We already know that Azula wouldn't choose us."

Said the person who had chosen Zuko over her. Azula glared at Mai through the flames of the fire until it was time to sleep, and then she couldn't close her eyes, and she wondered if they would ever make it to Ba Sing Se, even though they were already so close. 

They arrived at the ferry, and it took another few days to procure the necessary papers for their passage to Ba Sing Se. Azula traveled under the name of Ursa, while Mai and Ty Lee and Suki kept their own names. They decided to be as truthful as possible, and did not hide the fact that three of the girls were from the Fire Nation. They were each given a passport that would allow them to stay two weeks in Ba Sing Se that could be renewed by following the proper protocols. They could be denied further permission to stay or be escorted from the city at any time. Suki was given no restrictions, and the captain of her old security detail recognized her and thanked her for her efforts during the war. Azula had never seen Suki blush so much. Of course, Suki didn't do anything when the same captain confiscated Azula's bow. Maybe there really was nothing to be done, Azula thought. It wasn't as if she had fought to keep it either, giving it up as easily as she had lost her bending. She knew who had the power here, in this place.

The passage on the ferry took only a few days, and then they were on the train that let them off in the lower levels of the city. The streets were thronged with people. They sold food, sausages and lightly fried roots with purple skin, cabbages, and mangoes smelling sweet enough that Azula could not stop desiring one for herself.

“I propose we split up,” Azula said. “Suki and I will go to my uncle’s tea shop, while Mai and Ty Lee search the lower circles.”

“No,” the three girls said simultaneously, sharing a long side-glance. "We stick together."

Azula forced herself not to frown, to only shrug her shoulders as she turned up a street that headed in the general direction of the upper circles and the Jasmine Dragon. “Fine, have it your way. I’ll pretend that my feelings aren’t hurt that after all this time I still haven’t earned your trust despite my exemplary behavior.”

“We’ll never trust you,” Mai said.

Azula smiled at her. “We’ll see about that.”

The city sprawled before them but, even with the crowds, Azula could still see the effects of her invasion. Or, more specifically, her uncle’s conquest to free the city. She paused, her foot tracing a scorch mark, deep and black from the strength of the comet, that marred the stones under the shadow of Fire Nation tanks piled one on top of the other.

The city had not looked like this when she had sat the throne. She had taken it without hardly a single a blow, nor a single blast of fire. She had taken it with wits and cleverness, without an army, without her father, just her and Ty Lee and Mai when they had all been on the same side.

“I’m surprised they haven’t fixed this yet,” Azula said, nodding at the burn. “How embarrassing.”

She pulled the girls back into the shadows when they neared the Jasmine Dragon, choosing instead to watch the people file in and out, leaving usually with smiles on their faces, singing the praise of the best tea in Ba Sing Se.

Her lip curled. No matter how far he sunk, at least Father would never have stooped so low as to serve tea.

“What are we waiting for?” Mai said. “I’m thirsty and I want to sit down.” Then she was gone, pushing past Azula as she strode toward the tea shop. Azula wasn’t fast enough to stop her because Mai just did whatever she wanted now.

Glowering, Azula followed her and found that Mai had already seated herself at one of the low tables. The person greeting guests was not Uncle Iroh though, but someone else. A young boy she didn’t recognize, Earth Kingdom by the look of him.

“If you would like to join your friend,” he said.

“I’m not here for tea.” Azula cut past him, smoothing her hair so that it hung sharply, framing her face. “I’m here to see your master. He would be a fat old man who loves to eat just as much as he loves to drink his tea.”

He blinked at her, then called over his shoulder. “Iroh! There’s someone to see you.”

“Tell them I’m coming and that I’ll only be a moment.”

Azula’s skin pricked, became too small and too big for her all at the same time, squeezing her organs and her heart. She blinked hard against the easy tones of that voice, how soft it sounded, how it didn't sound like it belonged to the same person who was always telling her that she was crazy, that she needed to be controlled, that she was dangerous, that she needed to go down—

Then Iroh bustled out, his apron stretched tight over his stomach, his eyes half closed from the force of his smile as he prepared to greet whoever had asked for him. But then he saw who it was and his smile disappeared completely. His eyes widened. He stopped walking towards them until he saw Suki, standing only a few paces behind Azula. “What are you all doing here?”

“Oh, Uncle,” Azula said. She considered stepping in close, perhaps even embracing him as she had when she had been a small child. Instead, she leaned on the counter, tracing the grain of the wood with a calloused finger. “Is that a polite way to greet your travel-weary niece?”

“Excuse us,” he said, not to her, but to the girls who were behind her.

He took her by the hand and pulled her after him in the back room, away from curious ears. “Should I be frightened, Uncle?” she called as she lagged behind him. “Are you finally going to do away with me where no one can see?”

Instead, he let go of her hand, and pointed towards a low table. She glanced at it scornfully as he began to pour tea into two small, simple cups that were not even painted. “No, I am not, Azula.” He handed her one of the cups before joining her at the table. “Please. Share this tea with me.”

Azula set the tea untouched to the table. “I’m not here to drink tea, old man.” As if she’d drink anything he gave her. It could be poisoned.

“Then why are you here?”

“To find Zuko's mother, as you well know,” Azula said, “since you were present at the time I suggested the plan.”

“If that were the case, then you would not be here but rather elsewhere.” He chuckled to himself. “As you see your mother is not here, though I wish she were. I miss her.”

Of course he did. “You once asked me if I knew where Mom was. I told you, as I told Zuko, that no one knew.” Azula leaned forward so that her shadow fell over his face, his tea. “I've thought about this for a long time. There are two possibilities: either Mom is dead, or she is not. If she's not dead, I think it's because of you. Mom would have reached out to someone after her banishment, and I think that someone might have been you. She always liked you, and she was sad about your son. But then, you kept Zuko from her, because how else would he become the prince you needed him to become? Why would anyone choose a child's love for his mother when they could have a king instead? You betrayed Zuko, just like you betrayed your whole family!”

“I have never betrayed Zuko,” Iroh said, his voice soft. "And Ursa never reached out to me, though I wish she had."

Laughter ripped through Azula’s throat. “Never betrayed Zuko? You poisoned him with your thoughts and ideas! You turned him against us! Father would never have had to banish him if it hadn’t been for your influence!”

Iroh remained silent.

Azula paced in half-circles around him. “When did your change of heart come, Uncle? Before or after you assisted Zuko in his pathetic attempts to capture the Avatar?”

“You don’t understand what you’re saying, Azula.”

Azula slammed her fists down on the table. “Why? Because I’m too crazy to understand anything but fire, blood, and power?”

He raised his eyes so they met hers. Distantly, she wondered how he could be so calm. “Yes.”

Because she could not burn away his sad, old-man eyes, his grey beard, and the way his mouth sagged, Azula upturned the table. It splintered against the floor, and shards of wood sprayed her feet.

Spilled tea pooled on the floor.

“Azula,” Iroh said, “calm yourself.”

It wasn't exactly the last words her father had ever spoken to her, but it was close enough. “Don’t say that to me!” When she spoke, her voice seemed shrieking. She tried to find her breath, but it was gone in flapping, panicked gasps. She tried to focus on Iroh, she tried blinking her eyes rapidly, but it didn’t help. She could tell that he had lost weight, that he was no longer fat and soft. But she could not see the way he carried himself, or the look in his eyes. She could not tell if he was plotting something against her, if he was going to try to hurt her. She was nimbler than him, though, even if she couldn’t hit as hard as him.

“Don’t try it, Azula. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know you don’t.” Azula lunged toward him, and he neatly side-stepped her. “You don’t want to have anything to do with me. You never have.”

Iroh’s face softened. Became sad. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m crazy, as you’re so fond of saying, Uncle.” She tried to breathe, tried to compose herself. She didn’t feel like she was in control, like at any moment she could burst into laughter, or worse tears, that wouldn’t stop. She couldn't let that happen. It would only prove him right when she needed to prove him wrong. “I’m not crazy. I’m not,” she added.

Iroh looked at her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His eyes were a mystery. “You wanted to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. You wanted to burn your brother. You wanted to burn the whole world, and you tried to kill the Avatar so that you could do it. What else am I supposed to think? There is something wrong with you, Azula!”

Azula rubbed her hand over her mouth. She brought it away half-expecting to see the red makeup she sometimes wore slicking her skin, but she was a footsore traveler now, with no energy or money for beautiful things. Her hand came back dry and rough. “You tried to burn Ba Sing Se to the ground. I don’t see you calling yourself crazy. Maybe because you paid the ultimate price.”

Iroh bowed his head. “I regret that, and I will continue to pay penance for it.”

She laughed. “Is Zuko’s penance becoming the Firelord? What a terrible punishment.” She turned her back on Iroh, folding her arms around her torso as she glared at the wall. It was newly painted, white and speckled with green. She reached for it, tracing patterns shaped like flames. “But I’m locked in my room and sent on a mission that will make nobody happy because Mom is dead unless you're hiding her. But she's probably dead. She would have found Zuko in exile, even if you did try to stand between them. She would have come back when he was proclaimed Firelord because she loved him so much. Zuko always had Mom, and I was supposed to always have Dad, but now--” she remembered her father’s last taunts before she convinced Zuko to let her go. She spread her hands before her as if she could find the answer of where to find her bending in the lines that creased her palms. Her father had had his bending taken from him by the Avatar, but she had been foolish and inept enough to lose hers all on her own. And even Zuko had never done something that stupid. She squeezed her eyes shut, screwed her hands into fists. “Father treats me like Zuko now. No, he treats me worse than Zuko. He didn’t even try to touch me before he sent me away. He could have, if he had wanted to. Not with fire, of course, but I was so close to him, so close to the bars, that he could have touched me if he had wanted to. He could have left a mark on me like he left his seal on Zuko’s face. But apparently, I don’t even deserve that.”

For the first time, Iroh seemed to take an interest in what she had to say. His eyes sharpened, and his body tensed. “You’ve spoken with your father?”

She looked down at her feet, at the pools of tea finding the shallow hollows in the stone floor. “Father has sent me away many times,” she said finally. “On important missions he couldn’t entrust to anyone else. Nothing as important as finding the Avatar though.” She’d decided to take that on herself. She laughed. It was supposed to have been a fool’s errand intent on humiliating Zuko, and she had laughed at the futility of it, the promise of forgiveness if Zuko could do what was supposed to be the impossible. It shouldn’t be funny now with the Avatar returned and with Zuko crowned Firelord. It shouldn’t be funny that she had given the credit of killing the Avatar to Zuko only for him to spit it back in her face and become his friend. It shouldn’t be funny, but it was.

It was hilarious.

She should have killed all of that little gang. Then Zuko would have had no one to turn to, and they would be with their father, the Phoenix King, and she would be Firelord at home, Ty Lee and Mai beside her, while Zuko would be her agent in Ba Sing Se.

She laughed again because she could already hear her father saying how could she even think about killing them when she hadn’t even managed to kill the Avatar when she had had the chance.

Good one, Father.

“What did your father ask of you?”

"The usual, Uncle--he asked for the impossible." She laughed, but then rounded on him. “Like I would actually tell you! What do you think I am, some kind of traitor? But I’m not like you, Uncle. I’m not like Zuko.” She frowned again because Father had been so disappointed in her at the end, the very end. He was always so disappointed in her when he wasn’t being disappointed in Zuko. She had worked hard to earn his favor, and despite everything, she had lost it. Even now, he didn’t believe in her as he sent her on a fool's errand.

He had sent her on a mission she had no hope of completing. Even if she were to find her bending, how was she going to get him free? She couldn’t even keep the throne safe during the comet, and another one wouldn’t come for another hundred years, after they were all dead.

This was a punishment. A perfect, brilliant punishment, but one none the less. She would fail, and he had set her up to fail.

She was not good enough for him anymore.

“You wouldn’t be a traitor if you told me what he asked of you,” Iroh said, very gently. “He is my brother. We are family. You can tell me.”

“You can’t trick me, Uncle. I don’t believe you. You’ve never cared for me, and that you should start caring now is terribly convenient. Why don’t you ask him yourself—I’m sure he’d tell you since you’re supposed to be brothers, after all.”

Iroh sighed and he stroked his beard. “I know my brother, and I know you. He will not take his defeat quietly. He has asked you to free him, but you cannot, until you restore your bending, which is why you asked to find Ursa, so that you would have a chance to do just that. How’s it coming?”

Azula shrugged. “Nice try, Uncle. I’m reformed now. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. Why would I have any ulterior motives?”

“Because you’re Azula. It is who you are. It is in your nature.”

“If you had said that to Zuko, he would never have become the Firelord. You wouldn’t be proud of him, like you are now.” She smiled at Iroh. “You never liked me, so you never reached out to me. But that’s alright. I don’t need to be liked. And obviously, you don’t know anything about Mom so I’ll no longer waste my time in this hole you bother calling a tea shop.”

She ducked through the fine, green curtains back into the main room, ignoring the feeble way Iroh called after her. She found Ty Lee and Mai and Suki drinking tea, cups warm in their hands, cradled between their palms. Their smiles vanished as she approached and that was good, and she didn’t care. “Come along, girls. We’re leaving.”


	15. The Girl in Ba Sing Se

It was easy for them to make their way to the lower circles of Ba Sing Se. With their travel-stained cloaks, their dirty faces, and their limp hair, they looked like they belonged there.

They showed their sketch of Ursa to people trying to sell their stale food and twice-used wares. They shook their heads, their hands pushing them away once they realized they were not there to trade. Some said they might remember if they had a little incentive. One grasped at Ty Lee’s braid, offering a hot meal if she allowed her to cut it off that she might make a fine wig for the nobles in the upper ring. “Thank you for the lovely compliment, but I don’t think so,” Ty Lee had said, twitching herself free and flitting away.

“This is useless,” Mai said. “Nobody knows anything. If we offered them soup they’d say they saw her here or they saw her there.” She sniffed miserably, then coughed. “And what is that smell?”

“Are you giving up?” Azula said, her voice petulant. Ba Sing Se sprawled over many miles, and the largest part was reserved for the poor people, the refugees from the war, all crammed together like salted meats packed on a ship, ready to be consumed by people who weren’t even hungry. Even now she recognized women hard at work weaving cloth that would drape over the shoulders of the girls in the middle ring, and there was a man painting the brightly painted parasols they’d giggle under in the summer.

“I’m saying that we’ll never find her at this rate.”

Azula scoffed. “You’re giving up, like you always do. Honestly, I don’t know how I managed to get anything done with you around.”

“Azula,” Suki said. “Stop.”

She would have challenged Suki to make her, but then she remembered how she had pulled her hair, and stopped her from stealing the ostrich-horses. She lapsed into silence, and they wandered the heart of the district even though their feet were sore, until they came to what could only be a gathering place. It was a fountain that gurgled, flowing with clean water. Small hard coins—blue Water Tribe money, brassy Earth Kingdom currency, and the red shine of Fire Nation gold—flashed in the water. Circling the fountain stood wicks waiting to be lit, waiting for nightfall. Azula’s eyes narrowed as she followed the angle of the wood, imagining the light of the flame, and how it would hit the water.

Many would probably call it beautiful if they had come upon this place at night, with all the lanterns lit.

A young woman stood there, hands folded across her chest, fingers resting on the jutting edge of her collarbones. Her brown hair was in two braids that hung down her back. Hunger pinched her face.

“Excuse me,” Ty Lee called out. “Have you seen this woman?” She waved the painting under her nose until the girl gripped her wrist, holding her still.

She looked for a long time, until Azula began to fear that maybe she had seen the woman before.

“No,” the girl said. She raised her eyes, looking at their faces for the first time. “Who was she?”

“She’s a refugee from the Fire Nation. We think she might have come here to Ba Sing Se for, well, refuge,” Ty Lee explained.

The young woman laughed a hard bitter sound. “She has a Fire Nation look about her.”

The four girls exchanged a glance. “She was,” Suki said, finally.

The girl laughed again, then kicked a stone so that it skittered down the path.

“Is that a problem?” Azula asked.

“It kind of is. The Fire Nation made war on the Earth Kingdom for a hundred years, causing so many of us to become homeless, to try to find a new home in Ba Sing Se when there is only poverty. And then the Fire Nation exiles its own and where do they come? They come here when yesterday they had been enjoying the profits of our spilled blood and broken homes.” Her mouth twisted, and she turned away. “I knew such a one. He bore a scar on his face, called himself Lee. I didn’t know he was Fire Nation, but then it turns out he was Prince Zuko, and he was only here to conquer Ba Sing Se.” Her voice started to break. “I showed him this place. My favorite spot. This jewel of Ba Sing Se, proof that even we poor citizens of the lower ring had something beautiful and ours, and they still managed to take it away.”

“Did you love him?” Mai said, voice rigid.

The young woman flushed. “It doesn’t matter. He betrayed us.” She turned slowly, stepping beyond Ty Lee towards Azula, leaning in close. “Betrayed us to you.”

“Excuse me?” Azula said.

“I recognize you. You come disguised as you did before—dressed as our poor even though you’re the one that caused all this. What’s the big plan? To conquer us all over again?” She spat at Azula’s feet, and Azula raised her hand to strike, but Ty Lee caught her wrist, gently, and Azula froze at her touch.

“I’m a Kyoshi Warrior,” Suki said. “I swear on my honor that we are not here on a mission of war.”

The girl looked at Suki. “And that’s supposed to make me trust you? Even if you do speak the truth, what does it matter? The Dai Li were supposed to protect us, but they betrayed us. You’re no better than the Fire Nation, probably, just like them.”

Azula forced herself to relax in Ty Lee's touch, forced herself to acknowledge that she didn’t need to fight back and show that this stupid girl was getting under her skin. “If you must know,” she said, keeping her voice bored like Mai’s, “she’s my mother.”

The girl from Ba Sing Se laughed so hard she held her belly as she doubled over. “You must be truly desperate if you’re searching for her here. I hope you never find her. What is a queen doing here?” She left them there, then, and when she was safely out of reach, Ty Lee let Azula go.

“There’s no need to be rude,” Azula called after the girl’s retreating back as she rubbed life back into her arm. "It's not like she was ever a real queen anyway." Azula turned away, her shoulders hunched as she looked at the fountain. Ursa would have found it beautiful. She imagined Zuko and Ursa sitting at this place, and scowled.

"We should keep going," Ty Lee said. "We've barely even searched the lower levels. We'll be here for weeks!"

Azula remembered the view of the vast city from the train. Her heart sagged. She was tired. She was tired of all this. What was the use. Everyone told her she had been sent on a task that could not be finished. Why keep the charade going when there was no reason? She would never get her bending back. She would never find her mother.

Mai was looking at her, as if she could read her thoughts. As if she knew.

Azula straightened. "Yes. Let's keep going."

She turned away from the fountain and stopped. Men garbed in Earth Kingdom regalia blocked her way. Her eyes shifted as she looked at them, as she noted their stance, their rigid muscles. They were preparing for a fight, a fight against her. Once they had been under her command. Once they would have fought the her enemies. She raised her head high as she stared them down.

Beside her, Mai and Ty Lee flanked her. Ty Lee's knuckles crooked as her braid swayed. Mai stood tall and huffy, her arms folded in that false casual way of predators lounging in the sun. Her black hair shone.

“Your journey ends here,” their leader said.

Azula flexed her hands, willing for her bending to return, but they only felt cold and clammy. She found the young woman they had been speaking to earlier, lingering in the shadows. She’d gone and turned them in. Smart move. Something Azula should have been expecting, but her brain had been too focused on the uselessness of this journey, of how hungry she was, of how tired she was. She looked for a way out, but she didn’t see one.

The captain of the guard motioned with his fist, and manacles of stone shaped like fists flung towards her, binding her wrists behind her. “Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, you are under arrest for your conquest against the Earth Kingdom, the attack against Ba Sing Se, and the usurpation of the Earth King’s throne. Do you deny these charges?”

"We are here on Earth Kingdom authority!" Suki said, waving her passport.

"That was before we knew who she was," the Captain said. "Do you think we would have ever allowed Princess Azula to return? You tried to pull one on us before. Not again."

Azula struggled only momentarily against the manacles. They were strong, and she knew when she had been beaten. A cold sweat slicked her skin, but she sighed. “I don’t deny anything. To be honest, I’d do it again if I could.”

“Azula, are you crazy!” Ty Lee shouted, her voiced pitched high in a petulant whine, while Suki went to speak to their captain. Mai stood between them, her hands folded in her sleeves, her eyes wandering lazily between them without saying anything.

Two guards gripped Azula by her elbows and escorted her away. “Don’t worry about me, Ty Lee!” Azula called over her shoulder. “Just go on home back to Kyoshi Island.”

The young woman they had met at the fountain trailed after them. “What’s your name,” Azula said, as she shifted her weight so she went dead and limp and boneless in the guards’ hands.

The young woman said nothing as the guards struggled to make her walk.

“I guess it’s easier to fight back when you have an entire army behind you,” Azula said. “I don’t remember you standing up against me. Why, you were probably one of the girls cowering in their doorways as the Fire Nation marched down your street. Not so brave then but now? Everything’s different.”

The woman stepped forward, away from the shadows. “You’re right. It is.” She turned away and stepped back towards the fountain, her thin shoulders hunched over as she looked into the water.

Azula never stopped dragging her feet as the guards took them away. She pretended her father was watching her. Show nothing. Show no weakness.

She lifted her head higher, chin jutting forward as a line of sweat followed the curve of her spine.

A princess always knew when she’d been beaten.

They didn’t walk her through the streets of Ba Sing Se—not because they wanted to spare her the humiliation but because it would be too dangerous. They stashed her in a vehicle with no windows, something made of iron. Azula put her palm, slick with sweat from the heat, against it. Maybe she would have been able to burn through this, melt it all around her until she was splattered with molten metal, but there was nothing she could do.

She wasn’t like the blind girl who could bend metal. She wondered what they would do when more earth benders began to try, and discovered that they too could bend metal.

What would this cage do for them then?

When they arrived at the upper ring, they brought her to where the Dai Li had once dragged her to see Long Feng. They threw her in a cell of her own and left without a word.

Rats skittered on the edge of Azula’s vision as she paced her cell. It wasn’t as elaborate as the crystal catacombs she had used for Zuko and Katara. They were probably trying to show her she wasn’t worth it. It was something made of metal, and it sweated in the heat. She smoothed the wetness against her fingertips, in soothing circles before running her fingers through her hair. Would they bring her a pair of scissors if she asked them? She wrapped her hair around her wrist, held it taut from her scalp until it pulled pleasantly.

She heard her mother’s voice. Such beautiful hair, she was always telling her.

Azula needed a comb, and she thought about the one her mother used all the time, the one inlaid with jade. Her face twisted, and she wrenched another layer of hair around her hand. She sat down in the center of her cell, with her knees folded as she had once done in the bright sun on Ember Island. With her eyes closed, she combed her hair with her fingers. It was long work. She remembered when Li and Lo had gathered her hair with their warm, dry fingers spritzed in perfume.

But when footsteps echoed hollowly against the stone walls, she stood. Her hair fell around her face and in her eyes.

A guard appeared, and behind him, she saw her uncle’s grey-bearded face. “You have a visitor.”

She folded her arms and said nothing until the guard had left. “Have you come to laugh at my misfortunes, Uncle?” Her fingers trailed over the metal walls as she stepped toward the thick bars of her door. “Let me spare you the trouble.” She threw her head back and laughed, finding it in the deep pit of her stomach. Her voice echoed harshly against the cell, and she stopped as she put her hands over her ears.

Uncle Iroh remained silent until the echoes of her laughter had stopped. He remained some distance from the bars, as if coming any closer than necessary disgusted him. “I’ve not come to mock you. I’ve come to help you.”

Azula laughed again, a sharp sound that wrenched her belly in the wrong ways. She gripped the bars with both hands, her face pressed between them. “Now you’re concerned about me? What has changed your mind?”

“This is no laughing matter, Azula! You are in prison and accused of some very serious crimes.”

Azula tapped her chin. “Well, of course I am being accused of some very serious crimes. I stole the Dai Li, ousted the Earth King from his throne, and conquered the city in the name of my father. I just can’t understand why you’re concerned about them now, since you had some very unkind words to say when I was in your tea shop just a few hours ago.” She smiled widely. “Feeling guilty, Uncle?"

She turned her back on him without waiting for an answer. Hunger gnawed her stomach, thirst swelled her throat. Her vision blurred and dizziness made the room spin. She blinked, her breath coming in shaky breaths. The walls closed around her, and her hands splayed against them to stop their progress. It was the earthbenders, bending the metal into a closer cage. Undernourished, no fire, she could do nothing.

“Azula,” Uncle Iroh said, “I will do everything I can to help you.”

“Do you think I want your help? Do you think I need your help? Do you think this scares me? That I who have lead battles at the age of fourteen would be frightened by a mere jail cell, of the threat of execution? You needn’t concern yourself, Uncle. Besides, you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” She turned towards him then. “I know that you’re nothing but a tea shop owner, here. They might do something nice for you as a favor for saving their city from the Fire Nation, but I don’t think that courtesy would extend to the person who caused it to fall in the first place.”

“It is true that I have no real power here. They let me stay because of their good graces. Please, let me help you. Don’t say something foolish and jeopardize your chances of freedom. Besides, even though I can do little, I am sure that Zuko can do more.”

Azula’s eyes glared, her lip twisted around her teeth as she surged towards the barred door, slamming into it so hard it jarred her bones. “If you send word to Firelord Zuzu, I will kill you myself, Uncle, and you won’t be able to stop me for all your power.”

Uncle Iroh spread his hands. “He’ll know soon enough. They couldn’t capture you and keep you a secret. Think about this, Azula.” He put his hand through the bars, letting his wrist rest limply between them. “What do you have to prove? Your father no longer sits the throne.”

“I wouldn’t be here if he did,” Azula said. “Zuko and the rest of them would be in here instead. Where they would deserve to be for all their treachery."

“Who did they betray?”

“My father, who else? Aren’t you listening?” She ran her palm down the bars on her door. They came way filmed in dust and dirt, and she brushed them against her tattered trousers. Her father would have filled these prisons to bursting.

“But surely it was your father who betrayed them? Who continued to betray the peace between us? Just as he betrayed me when I grieved for my son, killed our father, and stole the throne for himself?”

“You were weak,” Azula said. “You were a failure.”

“Or how about when he betrayed your mother, banishing the throne she had gained for him?”

Azula covered her face with her hands. “He didn’t really banish her! He banished her like Zuko! She bore his marks, the scars he put on her, like he did on Zuko. How is that banishment when they carried him wherever they went? He was always with them, they were always home.”

Iroh leaned closer against the bars, his eyes hard, but his voice was gentle. His face was sad. “Azula--"

Perhaps he had finally run out of words of wisdom. But no, his eyes were wide. He had not known. He had not realized. That old fool. Azula ran her hands up her sleeves. “She wore long sleeves so that no one would see, but I saw. Even when we were at Ember Island she would wear her long sleeves, hiding how he had touched her.” Azula slipped closer towards her barred door, towards Iroh. She put her finger to her lips as her other hand clenched around a prison bar. “It was their little secret, and I never told because I’m not a treacherous lech like you.”

“Did Ozai touch you like that?”

Iroh put his hands around Azula’s before she realized that was what he had intended. His hands were warm and dry. She wrenched herself away and he let her. “Azula, I have wronged you. I should have seen what your father was doing, how he played you against your brother as he was played against me, how he crafted you into a tool and a weapon for his own ends. But I didn’t because you are a hard person to like, and I didn’t like you. In fact, you scared me, even when you were a little girl, you scared me. I am sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies, Uncle. They sicken me.” She several steps back so she stood in the center of her cell. “And you should have been scared of me.” There were things he didn’t know that she had done, of course, and if they had known, they would be scared like they should be.

Iroh stretched out his arm even farther through the bars. “Take my hand, Azula.” She didn’t, but he kept it there, waiting for her to move towards him. “Your father has sent you on a mission that will fail. You will not find your firebending, and if you do, you will not want to free him anymore, I think.”

“For someone so wise, you don’t know very much.”

“I know that your father does not expect you to find your bending. He sent you on a fool’s errand, Azula, like he sent Zuko on one. He is throwing you away because you are of no use to him. It’s a punishment, and look where your quest has found you. What are you to him without your fire? You’re useless, something to be set aside now that you cannot be used. And he has set you aside.”

“Shut up, Uncle!” Azula put her hands over her ears. “You will not poison me as you poisoned Zuko. You will not betray me anymore as you betrayed Zuko!”

“Azula,” Uncle Iroh said, “please take my hand.”

“Stop asking me!”

“I won’t say I’m sorry that you lost your bending, because in truth I am not, but I do hope that one day you will be able to restore the balance within yourself and be at peace. But even if you do not, you will still be Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation. You will still be Azula, my niece. You will still be Azula, Zuko’s sister. You are family, Azula. You will always be family, and you don’t need to be a weapon anymore. You’re so much more than that—with or without your firebending.”

Azula struggled to breathe. She felt so weak, from hunger, and finally her legs weakened as she slid to her knees, fingers scrabbling at the wall as if she could force herself to stand.

She did not want to keep listening to her Uncle, but she could not shut him out.

“You said something to me, and I didn’t think much of it because I didn’t want to listen to you, because I thought you spoke lies. And maybe you were lying, trying to make us let you go. Do you remember what you said? That you carried the same legacy as Zuko, that you struggle with both sides of your nature, that Zuko alone is not the only one who can restore the honor of the Fire Nation. Maybe without intending to, you spoke the truth. It is time for you to choose, Azula.”

She spread her arms wide to encompass the prison cell that held her. “What would you have me choose, Uncle?”

Iroh’s face softened. “The same thing I wanted for Zuko. That you choose goodness. That you become the person I know you can be—to choose your own destiny instead of the one forced upon you by your father. I remember when you were children, when you were very, very young. Maybe no more than four years old. You and Zuko together—you were brother and sister, and you worked together, you were each other’s strength. You can be that again, I think. Balance first yourself, and then the Fire Nation as you take your place at his side.”

“Oh is that all?” Azula said, laughing, as she rocked back and forth with her arms curled around your stomach. “Father only asked that I regain my bending to release him. But you—you ask that I give up myself so that I can become another Zuko.” Her head hung low, the matted fringe of her hair hiding Uncle from her sight.

Iroh sighed, and he lowered himself so that he sat on the dirt floor of the jail with her. “That is not what I ask. I don’t want you to become like Zuko.”

“That’s not what it sounded like,” Azula said.

“They intend to try you,” Uncle said, “for your crimes. If you do not want to change to save your country, then at least put on a changed face to save yourself. I’m sure they’ll believe you. Your bending may be gone, but your ability to lie is just fine.”

“And what of your sense of justice, Uncle? How would lying about my change of heart as I groveled at the Earth King’s feet fit into your sense of balance and justice?”

“Perhaps because I do not think it is fair that you, a fourteen year old girl, is being tried for the sins of your father.”

Azula’s eyes flashed as she remained very still. She had been stupid not to see this coming. They were not going to try her at all. They were going to use her to leverage Zuko in giving up his father. And he would say yes because he had no love for him anymore. Distantly, she heard herself say, “But I was the one who conquered Ba Sing Se. Me and Zuko did that.”

Iroh turned away as he rose to his feet. “You are not making this easy, Azula.”

“You sound like my mother. Am I supposed to make it easy for you? Go back to your teas, Uncle. I am sure your thirsty customers are wondering where they have gone.”

She rose to her feet once she was sure he was gone, and began to pace. They said she was the liar—and they weren’t wrong—but so was Uncle, coming in here as if he was doing her a favor when she was in no danger at all.

It was so obvious she was angry that she had not seen it coming before Uncle had visited her. It would be impossible to hide her capture from Zuko because diplomacy dictated that the Earth King send word immediately to the Firelord, informing him of her upcoming trial and the possibility of severe judgment.

Zuko, if he were wise, would not deny them for the sake of future diplomatic relations if nothing else. His speech about a new era of peace and kindness didn’t have a place in the real world, where real people demanded justice.

Then Zuko, because he hated his father, would offer them someone else in exchange, someone so much better, because who would want a baby when they could have a king.

She gnawed her lip as she paced. Once he guaranteed they would have his father, they would immediately trade her for him, even though it had been her plan to conquer Ba Sing Se, even though her father hadn’t even ordered her to lay siege to the city.

That had been her idea, and her plan, because she had seen the opportunity, and she had taken it without asking for permission.

If Zuko had ever seriously pursued the Avatar, he never would have taken the city. But she was different because she was her father’s daughter, knowing his own mind before he shared it with her.

But they wouldn’t see it that way—not Uncle and not Zuko and not the Earth Kingdom. They saw her as Ozai’s weapon, his fist, his fury. Not his equal. Her stomach twisted, the last words her father had spoken before his failure ringing hollow in the fallow pit of her belly, telling her to stay behind, because he needed her to keep the Fire Nation safe.

Such an important mission that he could trust to no other.

No one had expected Zuko to attack. She had failed his last mission, something he had given her to appease her, so he wouldn’t have to listen to her crying.

And she had failed.

She flexed her hands, crumpling them into fists as she struck the unyielding walls. Pain welled in her knuckles, and she struck again, over and over, and it stood tall and unyielding over her. Pain suffused her skin, and she sucked at her broken skin with her lips and teeth, hating that she felt the pain, hating the stale taste of copper as blood filled her mouth.

She was nothing, someone to shut up and box up and put away until someone more worthwhile would replace her.

They would trade her for her father, and he would receive whatever judgment they reckoned, and it would be one more thing that had been taken from her.

It soured in her mouth like bitter wine.

She would be sent away, released into Zuko’s care, and this time he would not let her go.

Her knees ached as she bent against the stone floor. She cradled her bruised hand against her chest, aware of its every throb as it pounded in time with her heart.

"Why are you so cruel to your uncle, child?"

Azula’s eyes flung open, her head jerked up as she recognized her mother’s voice. She was inside the cell with her, leaning against the bars.

“Oh,” Azula said, her voice shaking. “It’s you again. I thought you left without so much as a goodbye like last time. I could say you hurt my feelings, but we all agree that I don’t have any to hurt.” She hung her head, her hair falling in curtains between her face. But still, she could not stop staring at her mother through her hair.

She knew she wasn’t there, not really. But she looked real, she sounded real.

“I did say goodbye, Azula.” Her mother moved through the bars so that she could crouch beside Azula, her hand reaching out to cup her cheek in her palm. “You were sleeping, and I did not want to wake you after asking so much of you.”

Azula moved away from her mother’s hand. “How convenient for you that I was asleep when you supposedly came to say goodbye.”

Her mother smiled, not as widely as she did for Zuko. It was a small smile. A sad smile. “You looked at peace. I remember thinking that perhaps I had made you into what you are.” She rose to her feet, her red silk robes flowing like water to her feet, the gilded hems shining in the dark. “I wish that things had been different between us.”

Azula remained on her knees, her mouth twisting as scalding tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m a big girl. I’ve made my own choices.”

“I’m so sorry, Azula. I hope you know I’ve always loved you.”

Azula put her hands over her ears and shook her head. It wasn’t fair that her mother could come and go as she pleased, whispering lies that weren’t true but that Azula had once wanted to be true so badly when she had been a child. But she was grown up now. She didn't need any of those childish things anymore.

She raised her head to tell her mother this, but she was alone in her cell.

“You can’t do this to me!” she said. “I am Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, daughter of Ursa and Ozai.” Her voice broke over the words. “You can’t just come and go as you please!” Her words echoed in her cell, clanging in her ears as she collapsed to her knees. She rocked back and forth in the center of her cell, her fingers twisting through her hair, as she sobbed.


	16. Your Guilty Heart

“What are we going to do?” Ty Lee asked, wringing her hands as she paced the main room of Iroh’s closed tea shop. “What are they going to do with her?”

Mai lounged in one of the seat which was tilted against the wall. She had her hands braced against the back of her head, and her eyes were half-closed. She wanted to remain in silence, but Ty Lee wouldn't allow it. She was overreacting. “Relax. She’s going to be fine. Like she always is.”

“Mai is right,” Iroh said as he poured tea for each of them. “She is just a child. They will request that Zuko exchange her for Ozai.”

Ty Lee bit her nails as her tea grew cold in front of her. “She is not going to like that.”

“She didn’t like it at all,” Iroh said. “She seemed surprised when I mentioned it to her. Insulted, almost.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t think of it herself. She thinks of everything.” Mai watched the evening shadows seep through the closed blinds. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. Azula hadn’t seen what happened at the Boiling Rock coming, after all. Of course she would be too proud to realize that Ba Sing Se would rather have her father, the former firelord already brought so low. Mai rose to her feet, shoulders hunch, face sour. “Can’t we go home and let Zuko deal with this mess? What’s the point of him being Firelord if we have to play these political games? I don’t like sitting here, not doing anything. It's boring.” Worrying was not doing something. Wondering what was going to happen was not doing something. She needed something to act upon. She needed something to do. She thought of the things she could do. She could visit Azula. She could rescue Azula. She could leave and never come back.

“Perhaps you should return home,” Iroh said kindly. “I can tell you are missing Zuko, and I know he misses you.”

Ty Lee looked between them, her face puzzled, a frown wrinkling her smooth skin. “But Azula hasn’t completed her mission. She hasn’t restored her honor. She hasn’t gotten her bending back.” She spread her arms. “We don’t know what happened to Ursa, yet!”

Mai yawned and sighed as she glanced at Ty Lee. "It doesn't matter."

Ty Lee swayed towards her, hands clenched in supplication for Mai to please understand. “It does matter! How can you say that like you don't care! I get that you don't care about Azula, but her mother, Zuko's mother?" Ty Lee looked at her with something like accusation. "Don't you care about anything?"

Mai frowned deeper as she pushed herself to her feet. Her hands clenched inside her sleeves. "I need some air." She walked towards the street, with the sun already beginning to set. She turned, half heartedly. "It won't matter. None of this matters. Azula will be free soon, and it will just start again." She listened hard for the flit of Ty Lee’s feet rushing after but heard nothing, and her muscles relaxed a fraction. Perhaps Iroh had held her back, told her she needed space. Or perhaps she was tired of running after Mai when Azula was there, a flitting bit of light making empty promises in the dark.

Mai wandered the streets, hugging herself against the chill that seemed to perpetually settle over the Earth Kingdom at night. Should she see Azula in prison? A friend would do that, would see their old companion, but she and Azula weren’t friends. At least not anymore, if they ever had been.

She remembered when Azula had locked her in that prison in the Boiling Rock. It was always hot there, and Mai had hated it. She had sat on her hard bed, arms crossed behind her head, glaring up at the stone walls. She had imagined what she would do when she got out. If she got out, because it wasn't as if Zuko was going to rescue her. It wasn't as if he hadn't left her behind.

Not that he had a choice, she had reminded herself. He had big things to do. An entire nation's honor to restore. A new era to create of peace and kindness. And she had wondered, to herself, where was the kindness in leaving her to rot?

Mai kicked at a stone and watched it skitter down the paved streets.

She had distracted herself from thinking about those things by thinking about Azula. By imagining her in jail too. In a cell so far away she wouldn't see anything that she cared about ever again because Mai imagined that Azula had to care about something, even if it was just for her father or for her freedom to do whatever she wanted.

But even Mai had never imagined that Azula would lose her bending as she had imagined all the horrible things that could happen to Azula if she were trapped in a jail cell just like hers. She had only imagined they would lock her up somewhere nice and cold, where she wouldn't be able to firebend.

Mai allowed herself a very small smile. The other loiterers in the streets who passed by her didn't recognize it as such, but Zuko would have smiled back at her.

Every horrible thing she hoped would happen to Azula had come to pass. She couldn't bend. She was in jail. Mai should be happy, even though she had been told all her life nothing would make her happy

She had embraced this fact about her a long time ago. She was an unhappy girl. She would always be an unhappy girl because the only things that could make her happy would never happen.

Except it had happened. And she still wasn't happy. She sighed, gloomily, as she continued to walk the streets. She wasn't even sure why she was surprised. Because of course she wouldn't be happy. This was who she was. Even when she was with Zuko, she was happy, but she wasn't happy--not like Aang or Katara were so obviously, obliviously happy.

Mai grew tired of walking, and sat down on the steps of what she thought was the university. It was deserted now, everyone gone home.

Technically Mai had not deserved to be held in the Fire Nation prison. Technically, she had been imprisoned unjustly while Azula deserved it and whatever else she got. But no matter how much Mai focused on Azula and what she deserved, she couldn't shake the doubting voice that kept whispering in her ear that it wasn't that simple.

If Azula was imprisoned for her conquest of Ba Sing Se, then Mai should be imprisoned with her—Ty Lee too. They had both helped, after all. Azula, for all her pride, wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. If one of them had said no—

Mai squeezed her eyes shut. They were under Azula’s command. They had not been taught to say no to Azula, they had known what the consequences would be if they did.

But none of the fancy Earth Kingdom officials in their finery had wanted them—maybe the guards had not recognized Mai and Ty Lee without their Kyoshi disguises. But she knew what Iroh would have said if they had come for them. He would have said that people don’t defy the Firelord. He would have said, looked at what happened to my nephew, and he had not even openly defied the Firelord, his own father. Would do you think would have happened to Mai and Ty Lee if they had dared to say no?

And Iroh wouldn’t have been wrong. Mai could easily imagine what would have happened to them if they had risen against Azula in the drill or even in Ba Sing Se.

But, still, that wasn’t quite right because Mai had defied Azula before, and she had escaped unharmed without even a strand of her shiny, black hair singed. She had told Azula no when she had demanded they follow the Avatar, and Ty Lee had taken the plunge down the stinky slurry pipe alone when Mai should have been by her side. Mai had even rubbed it when she pushed open the window. We lost, she had said, and all Azula had done was wring the slurry from her hair and frown at Ba Sing Se, the determination to win burning through her.

Mai had told Azula no when she had helped Zuko escape.

She could have said no in Ba Sing Se, and she hadn’t. Instead, she had watched Azula terrify the Dai Li to comply with her demands, her leadership, and she had smiled. She had laughed. She had enjoyed watching them squirm, just like she had back in school, when they were just kids.

Mai frowned. She was starting to sound like Zuko and that letter he had left behind when he dumped her.

But what could she have done? Her parents had climbed their political ladder, but they were no one, not really. They were barely even nobility and what could she have done against royalty? Azula had everything, and she had had nothing! Her parents would never have forgiven her if she had burned a bridge with Azula. Even now, they were not happy with her, even though the Firelord was her boyfriend.

Was there anything to make right, or did she just not know how to make it right?

The vastness of the Fire Nation’s crimes rose high above her. The re-spun histories tangled in her mind, and she held her head between her knees.

How did Zuko deal with all of this?

By writing a letter saying goodbye.

It was easier, following the path set before them. Find a mother that was gone forever, return home when Azula wearied of her search or finally dumped them. But this?

What was she supposed to do with this? This wasn't something that just ended. It would always be there asking her what she was going to do about it--and wasn't she the one who was always looking for something to do?

She jumped when Ty Lee’s feather light touch brushed her shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t,” Mai said, voice grating and resentful against her teeth.

“I struggle with it too.” She sat beside her, her bare arm hugging Mai close against the chill of the evening air. “I think about how Azula is in jail for her crimes against the Earth Kingdom and how we walk free.”

Mai swallowed. Ty Lee wasn't wrong, but she wasn't completely right either. There was so much more, and she didn't even know how to begin talking about it. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.” She hugged herself closer so that she was not pressed up against Ty Lee.

“I think about how easy people think it is to say no, and I think about how Azula hurt us without letting us know she was hurting us, and I think about how Ba Sing Se is a burden we should not bare solely on our shoulders because we were children. Our parents sent us to places we did not belong, and we did not know how to say no—even though we should have.” She bowed her head, and Mai saw a tear slide down her cheek. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Mai bit her lip. “Then that would apply to Azula too.” It wasn't quite the same, maybe. But the truth of it was there: none of them should have been there on the front lines. And maybe nobody had taught Azula how to say no either. Not that she could ever imagine Azula wanting to say no. But Azula had always been cruel, even when they were young. Mai could not think of a time where Azula would even think about saying no if someone asked her to do something mean and cruel. Maybe Ty Lee was right in theory, maybe it was true that Azula never had a chance, never had a choice, but there was something wrong with Azula. She would have chosen what they had asked her to do even if she really had had a choice.

“That’s why we need to get her out and help her finish this quest, whatever it turns out being. I know she did a lot of bad things. I know she got us all tangled up in that and sometimes we even enjoyed it. I know your parents wrote you very day, asking about your friendship and asking that you become even closer to Azula because a friend of the princess is a friend of the prince is a friend of the Firelord.” Ty Lee sighed. “I just think that if we help Azula, we help ourselves.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” Mai said.

“We had some good times,” Ty Lee said as she always did. “Like that time on the beach, after we left the fire and we destroyed the house of those teenagers?” She giggled, clapping a hand to her mouth like she was someone shy and demure. “The ones who thought they were all that.”

Mai smiled without showing her teeth because they shouldn't have done that. “I remember. We were so angry even though we didn’t know why.” Her face fell. “But I know why now. Don’t you get it, Ty Lee? We should have been like those teenagers, but we weren’t ever allowed to be teenagers. We didn’t know how to be. It shouldn’t be a happy memory. Li and Lo said we would be rubbed smooth, but we weren’t. It just opened new wounds, and nothing changed.”

“You stood up to Azula,” Ty Lee said. “That changed.”

“I’ve stood up to her before,” Mai said. “I didn’t go down the drain pipe like you did.”

“Because I didn’t mind,” Ty Lee said, “not because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.”

“It would have been okay if you were afraid.” Mai turned away, hiding her face in the shadows. “I was afraid of Azula. I always was. I was afraid that she’d burn my face, and that my parents would ask me what I did to deserve such a thing. I was afraid that Azula would say that I should be grateful that she cared enough to hurt me. I was afraid that she would see through my parent’s charade and abandon me and ruin my life. It wasn’t later that I realized she already knew, of course, and that I didn’t even have the power of that secret.” Mai fell silent, and like someone merciful, Ty Lee said nothing as she put her hand in Mai's. "I'm still afraid of her," Mai finally said after a few minutes. "It's so stupid, but I'm afraid of her. I'm afraid she's faking. "I'm afraid that once she finally accepts that she's lost everything that made sense to her, she'll come back worse than ever. I don't want to be there when she finally stops grieving. When she finally gets over it."

“It’s different now,” Ty Lee said. “She doesn’t have any power. I call her princess because she likes it, but she’s not one anymore. And soon, when you marry Zuko, you’ll be the Fire Lady.” Ty Lee pulled Mai around by her wrist so that Mai was forced to face her. “You have power, Mai. You’re not that frightened girl anymore. Azula knows it, and she knows there’s nothing she can do about it either."

Mai pulled away. “I know.” Mai’s voice felt as rusted and dull as the knives that Azula had caused to sink to the bottom of the ocean, to be nicked and broken by the sand. “I know all that, but I don’t feel it. She looks at me and I still see that glare in her eyes when she said that I should have feared her more. I hate that I can’t get away from her. She was with me in the prison, and she was with me when she was trapped in her room, and she’s with me now, even though she isn’t. We always talk about her.”

Ty Lee smiled. "We don't need to talk about Azula! We can talk about you and Zuko and how in love you are."

“I don’t want to talk about me and Zuko.” She turned her face away, but there was a spot of color on her cheek. Ty Lee waited for Mai to continue, and because Mai could not deny her, she said, “I miss him.” She sighed as she held her arms around the chill. The stairs of the university were hard, and she wondered why she had come out here at all when it was so uncomfortable, when she could be in the comfort of Iroh’s tea shop. “I remember when I first heard that he’d been banished.”

“I remember,” Ty Lee said. “You didn’t even ask why, but you were always looking for him, it felt like. Every time you heard a step your head would jerk up, like you’d hope it’d be him, even though you knew it couldn’t be him at all.”

“I hate that feeling,” Mai said. “Hope that makes you think it could be even though you know it can't be. And then as time went by, I knew he'd return a stranger because of how long he had been gone, how much he would have changed. Even though I knew there was no hope that I would recognize him, I still hoped it would be him every time. It was so stupid. I missing someone who didn't exist anymore.”

Ty Lee’s eyes were soft. “Did you recognize him? When you were finally reunited.”

Mai looked at her feet. “No. Not his footsteps, not his voice. It had deepened so much during his journey away. Even his face was different.” She had not seen him after the incident with his father. Even the pictures that had once placed a price on his head had not done his likeness justice. Everything had been different when he had returned. She scowled at her lap. “And then I hated myself for missing someone so much. It made me feel so stupid, especially when he dumped me." She closed her eyes. She remembered the feel of the paper in her hand. How she had folded it carefully after she had read it through once. How it had felt so heavy in her robe. How much it had hurt. How she had wondered what had happened, what had she done to make him do that, to leave a letter without even letting her say goodbye. How could he have done that to her? Even now she wondered, even though she knew. He had told her. He had apologized for it. But still, the question lingered, and she hated that it was still there like another thing that would never heal.

"Oh come on!” Ty Lee leaned back against the steps, her hands braced behind her head as she gazed up at the stars. “It’s okay to miss people you like and who like you back. I mean, I know you didn’t really get that with your parents, right? You were their ticket to your father having his own governorship. And Azula wanted to make herself feel better than everyone around her, so she surrounded herself with people she could use. But Zuko never did anything like that. It’s not stupid to miss that. It’s nice.”

“I don’t want to need things,” Mai said. “People use that against you." She snapped her mouth shut, her teeth clicking against each other. It was something Azula had told her. Azula would always be with her, even if she was left to rot in Ba Sing Se and she went back home to the Fire Nation.

They were silent for a moment. Clouds drifted over the moon, and the stars dimmed.

“What do you want to do when you get home?” Ty Lee asked.

“Sleep on a real bed with real covers,” Mai said.

Ty Lee laughed as she stood up and held out her hand to Mai, who took it. They made the long walk back to Iroh’s tea shop, and Mai tried not to think about her sleeping peacefully tonight while Azula suffered in the jail. It wasn’t as if she had had nights of her own to sleep on soft beds when she had left them in the Boiling Rock.

Iroh welcomed their return, but his old face was sagged with worry and age. Sleep did not come to any of them, and once Mai got up for a drink of water. She paused when she saw Iroh still seated at one of the low tables, a small candle flickering in the shadows. His head was bowed, and she wondered at the sound of his tears, and the whispered name of his son, and she wondered why that had anything to do with Azula.


	17. Hold My Hand

Azula stood before the Earth Kingdom tribunal. Her father, if they requested him in her place, would not face something as kind of this. Ty Lee had told her so, that this was just a meeting to determine what should be done. They had let Ty Lee come to her in her cell before the tribunal. Ty Lee had washed her face with a wet cloth. She had combed her hair, and had asked if she wanted it braided. Azula had shook her head. Ty Lee had asked if she wanted it in her top-knot, and she shook her head again. So her hair hung in long lengths down her back and around her shoulders. Ty Lee had talked the whole time, and Azula had not listened. The words had gone through her, hollowing her until there was nothing left but the inevitable. She looked for her mother out of the corner of her eye, but she was never there, just like always.

The tribunal was a farce. It was a waste of time. She heard her father's voice in her ears as she clutched at the wooden seat they had provided for her near the front of the room while Mai, Ty Lee, Suki, and Iroh sat behind them along with other Earth Kingdom officials. There was even a thin, green cushion for comfort. She hated that. She hated the color, and then she caught sight of Mai looking at her, and she raised her head high.

A few minutes later, the King with his retinue, including his strange bear, arrived and occupied the raised dais at the very front of the room.

“You’re looking well, King,” Azula called out. “Last time I saw you, you were in a jail cell. And I heard a lovely rumor that you wandered your kingdom disguised in rags on your bear's back. Did it suit you? To wander the earth like some peasant? Did you ever get so hungry you were tempted to eat poor Bosco?”

“Don't say that about Bosco!" The king cried out, indignant, as he covered the bear's ears. Then he turned serious as he raised his eyes towards her. "I saw much in my travels after being ousted from my inner sanctums. I was eager for a chance to see the people with whom I was so out of touch, so I suppose I should thank you for that.” He held out his hand as if Azula would have deigned to answer him. “But what I saw left me—“ he paused, his face pinched and tired and sad—“angry.”

Azula smiled.

“The fields were burned to the ground. Villages, which had once been rich and prosperous, were failing. Fire Nation emblems hung over their entryways instead of the Earth Kingdom. Our currency was Fire Nation, not Earth King. Some even wore Fire Nation red, the greens and browns of the earth forgotten. Not surprising though when their surrounding countryside is a charred scar.”

“Am I supposed to feel bad about your subjects appreciating better fashion sense?” Azula said. “I assure you we aslo have some delightful pinks. Perhaps I should introduce these villagers of yours to Ty Lee.”

Then Uncle Iroh’s voice rang out. “Azula!”

She rolled her eyes. “Apparently, I’m supposed to be taking this seriously. Hard to do, considering the ease with which I conquered you, but I suppose I’ll just have to manage it.” She schooled her face into something she hoped implied she was taking this very, very seriously indeed.

“Your crimes are what this tribunal is gathered to discuss.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Azula said, her voice sharp. “I attacked you, I conquered you, and you never even saw it coming. Instead, you trusted me like a fool and welcomed me into your city with open arms. If I had been here during the comet, my uncle and his treacherous associates would never have taken this city back from the Fire Nation. But my father—“ her voice stumbled, and she snapped her mouth shut before she allowed her treacherous body to betray her further.

“Yes, this is what we are here to discuss,” the King said. “Did you attack Ba Sing Se on orders of the previous Firelord, Ozai?”

“No,” Azula said. “My orders were to bring back Prince Zuko and General Iroh as traitors to the throne. I decided to also capture the Avatar since my brother was clearly incapable of doing so.” She shrugged. “Taking Ba Sing Se was just something I decided to do as a lark. I saw an opportunity to take the city, and so I took it.” Her mouth was dry, and she desperately wished for water. "You should be thanking me. It should have ended the war but you still had to fight." If they had let the city go, if they had let the Kingdom go, they wouldn't have had to burn the whole thing to the ground. Father wouldn't have had to go.

The king looked surprised. “You are so young that we had thought—“

“—That I was incapable of thinking for myself?” Azula said. "Long Feng made the same mistake, and you see what happened to him."

“Your highness,” Iroh said, pushing his way towards the front, and bowing deeply before him. Azula rolled her eyes. No wonder her father had stolen the throne from him. “I ask for your patience, and I ask that you lend me your ear as I attempt to explain how all of this has come about.”

“No one is in the mood for your stories, Uncle.” Azula yawned, dramatically. She eyed the room as she did so. There were government officials, and there was Mai and Ty Lee and Suki. They looked unimpressed with their surroundings, which Azula could not help but agree with. They were in a simple room, and the accommodations were not luxurious. But then, as Mai’s eyes fell on her, as dull and expressionless as ever, Azula realized that it was with her that Mai and the others were unimpressed. Azula's eyes smoldered, her skin breaking out into a cold sweat as she turned her attention back to her uncle and the king.

She wondered how long it would take them to ask for Ozai instead. She wondered how many would say, why can’t we just have both?

They would not be merciful.

“My niece is troubled,” Iroh said, “and she has come from a troubled house. Though it is probably true that her father did not directly order her to take the city, I beg the king to keep in mind that Ozai did not treat Azula like a daughter, but like a weapon. He would have expected her to take the city if she could. If she had not, the punishment would have been just as severe as if he had ordered her to conquer it himself.”

Azula opened her mouth to let them know that wasn’t true. She was her father's daughter. His favorite. The same favorite he had left behind because he hadn't needed her--not with the comet. Her hands gripped the chair as she stared at Bosco, who stared back at her with round brown eyes. He yawned hugely, and his mouth was pink, and Azula looked at the jaws and the teeth and the tongue. A father would have let his daughter come, a king would not leave his greatest general behind, but a warrior would leave behind a weapon that he no longer needed.

These thoughts were no stranger to her. They had grown louder as her doubts festered during her journey. Even Uncle Iroh had whispered them to her, but he didn't count. He always whispered lies.

She sank back into her chair, her eyes closed. She wanted to go home. It was time. There was nothing for her here, just like there was nothing for her in the palace. Zuko would let her return, because what else would a person ushering in a new era of peace and kindness do? Mai would flit in the shadows, just on the outside of her vision. Ty Lee would return to Kyoshi Island. Her father would leave to face justice from the Earth Kingdom.

Uncle Iroh was still talking to the Earth King. What could he be saying? There was nothing to say. Only something to be done. Finally, after what seemed a long time, Uncle Iroh offered the exchange of Ozai for her freedom. Apparently, Zuko had sent communication already agreeing to the plan. Azula did not protest as she had planned, choosing instead to sit in silence as the words rolled over her, like water, like the water that Katara had turned to ice before chaining her to the grate.

The Earth King agreed because imprisoning children was not something that he could agree to, and because Azula had not killed any civilians in her conquest of the city. The Earth King hoped that their proposed trade would go far in solidifying the peace between their two nations. "Besides," the King added, his hand fondling Bosco's ears, "Ozai is truly the one responsible. I do hope, Azula, that you do not follow his example when you grow up. This is a second chance for you!" He seemed proud of himself that he would be offering anything to an enemy.

Azula bowed. "Thank you for your mercy," she said as she was led from the room.

In a few minutes, she stood on a corner of a street in the Upper Ring, surrounded by Mai, Ty Lee, Suki, and Uncle Iroh. The officials who had escorted her to and from the jail cell were no longer visible, disappearing into the shadows as quickly as they had appeared to arrest her. They shuffled their feet awkwardly, while Uncle Iroh looked at her with his sad, depressing eyes. "Are we ready to go, girls?" Azula said, attempting to rally herself. "I believe we have imposed on the Earth King's hospitality long enough."

"You are more than welcome to share a cup of tea before you go," Uncle Iroh said quietly.

“I appreciate the help you’ve given me, Uncle, but I have had quite enough of Ba Sing Se, and I desire to leave immediately.”

“As you wish, Azula.” Uncle Iroh bowed his head. “May I at least accompany you to the outskirts of the city?”

“Whatever you desire, Uncle. It’s not as if I have the power to stop you.”

“You need only say the word,” Uncle Iroh said.

“Then consider it said,” Azula shot back. Her voice scraped against her throat and through her teeth like a knife blade. She had not slept well, she had not eaten well, and she was thirsty. Worse, she did not know where to go from here. First, she had flung herself in whatever direction her father had pointed her, whether it be to bring back Zuko or the Avatar or Ba Sing Se.

But now? There was nothing. She had no idea where her mother would have gone. She was not at her old home, she was not in Ba Sing Se as a refugee. She was always gone, even when she appeared with to her saying such terrible lies.

“I was going to give you this as we drank tea,” Iroh said, “but it appears that is not to be.” He handed her a scroll. “This came in by messenger hawk. It is from Zuko.”

"Goodness, what does he want from me now?" Azula broke the wax seal and unrolled the parchment. Zuko’s script had always been bold and strong, so it wasn’t hard to make out the words. “He wants us to go to the Southern Water Tribe, to make peace and reparations. Apparently, Katara is already there and is expecting us.” She looked at the narrow box that had accompanied the hawk. It was stamped with the seal of the Southern Water Tribe. “Apparently he found a box of waterbending scrolls in the Fire Sages’ library that he wants us to return.” She turned the parchment over to see if there was anything else written on the back. There was nothing. “What does he think I am? Some kind of messenger?” But she said the words without real heat—it was a place to go, after all, and wasn’t that what she had been wishing for? She had heard tales of the Water Tribe, both North and South. She had heard what had happened to General Zhao. She would not make the same mistakes. And besides, maybe she would find answers there. She knew both poles were sensitive to spirit activity. She knew that Katara and Zuko shared a bond over their missing mothers. Perhaps she could enlist her to consult the spirits as a favor for Zuko over where Ursa might be hiding or to confirm the event of her death. Whichever would allow her to return to the Fire Nation without being further humiliated.

Still, she said, “Does Zuko even know that this is out of our way? As if Mother would have gone to the Water Tribes.”

Uncle Iroh tucked his hands in his sleeves. “Sometimes you find the thing you seek in the most unlikely of places.”

Azula scoffed as she rolled her eyes.

They stayed long enough in Ba Sing Se to buy what they needed: thick enough clothes to protect against the cold, waterproof cloaks, seal jerky, and mounts so they would not have to walk to the shipyards which were a long way off. To Azula’s shame, Uncle Iroh had to pay for most of it since Azula’s purse, already bare and light of coin, had been lost during her arrest. She looked at the other three girls. Suki and Ty Lee were murmuring together, and Mai had another parchment in her hand. Azula imagined it was probably a letter from Zuko. A personal letter, hoping she was well instead of ordering to do this or to do that. Azula looked away and then cleared her throat as she pretended to be very interested in a thick coat with a lovely fur trim. “I think the time has come for us to part."

The three other girls looked up at each other and shared a glance. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that there is no need for you to babysit me any longer. I’m in no danger of attempting to reconquer Ba Sing Se, if that’s what Zuko is afraid of. I have no firebending, so I am unable to be a danger to anyone of consequence. I do not believe that our mother is still alive, and I look for her only because I promised—and I will not fail on my quest when my brother succeeded in his. Nor do I believe it is possible for me to restore my bending. I see no reason for you to stay. Your work here is done. Why share my exile when you can return home?”

Uncle Iroh opened his mouth, probably to utter some words of wisdom about how she didn’t have to do this alone or the value of friendship, but he stepped away. Good. This conversation wasn’t for him.

“Princess Azula,” Ty Lee said, slipping her hands in her. “Please don’t send us away. I’m not afraid of exile, or the cold, or of you.”

Azula’s eyes flashed. She wanted to tell Ty Lee that just because she didn’t have fire didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous. Even now, by twisting her wrists just so, she could bring Ty Lee to her knees, and she would feel such pain and fear. But she didn’t do that. She let her hands rest in Ty Lee’s and she listened without really listening as Ty Lee trilled on. Trust was for fools, and she wouldn’t trust the girls who had betrayed her, but fear hadn’t worked either. What else was there? What was the one thing that would not betray her?

She was not strong enough to push people away, like she had been when she was crowned Firelord. It had been easy then. The throne room awash in blue. The flames thick and hot. Her hair undone, her robe loose around her. Banished, banished, banished, as they shuddered in fear before her, and they had left her and she had been alone, so alone. Still, she had succumbed almost instantly to Zuko. She should have done what she’d always done. She should have pushed him away too, instead of bringing him back home to father.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, as Ty Lee rubbed soothing circles into her hands with her thumb.

“Fine. Come if you want. I don’t care—I was just trying to be thoughtful.”

The others joined Ty Lee, of course, like they always. Suki followed because Ty Lee did, and they were Kyoshi Warriors now. Mai did it for Zuko.

“But then I’m going home, no matter what,” Mai had said as she climbed her ostrich horse.

They left the city quickly, and made for the nearest shore with a ship that would make port at the Water Tribe. The small box of Water Tribe scrolls was strapped to Azula’s waist. They spoke little on the way, and Azula did nothing to break it.

“You alright?” Suki said at last. “Being in prison isn't fun. I would know, after all.”

“I’m fine, Suki. And even if I weren’t, you have nothing to fear.”

“That’s not what I meant, I—“

Ty Lee reached over and took Suki’s hand. “Don’t worry when Azula gets like this. She’ll be better soon.”

Azula rolled her eyes and said nothing. She wondered if Zuko had given her this task because it was truly important or if he was trying to placate her, trying to make her feel useful. “When we reach the town, we’ll trade work for passage to the South Pole.”

“Just like that?” Mai’s mouth was set downwards. “No tricks? No plans to escape?”

Azula shook her head.

“See!” Ty Lee clapped her hands. “People do change!”

“Change,” Mai said in her flat voice. “Right.”

Azula said nothing, though there was plenty she could say, she thought, if she cared to do so. She could remind them they could have gone home and left her to her own devices. She could have told them she didn’t care if they came with her or not.

But she didn’t. She said nothing as they traveled, as she forced herself to think and to look back beyond the moment she realized she had lost her memory, beyond her challenge to Zuko to Agni Kai, beyond when her father abandoned her as the comet crested the sky, beyond the days she had sat at her father’s feet as she waited for him to give her a mission.

But for all his power, it hadn’t saved him. It hadn’t helped him.

The package that Zuko had asked her to deliver like she wasn't a princess was heavy at her side.

When they made their way to the port, they sold their ostrich-horses to help pay for passage. They spoke to a Captain Sura, whose ship and crew traded between Ba Sing Se and the islands dotting the South Pole.

"Your work sounds incredibly interesting," Azula said, "but are you going to take our services or not?"

Captain Sura looked them up and down, appraising them. Azula glanced sidewise at Mai, at Ty Lee, at Suki, and wondered if Sura saw the people she saw. Mai’s hair was glossy, shiny black again, and Ty Lee’s hair was smoothly braided. Suki’s hair had grown long, though her cheeks were hollower than before. Azula glanced down at herself—her clothes were clean but simple. Her hair long and undone. She wondered if Ursa would want to run her fingers through the lengths of it, binding it into something presentable, something beautiful.

But they looked liked they could work, that they could sail a boat. “We’ve sailed before,” Azula said. “Around the Fire Nation primarily. A little in Earth Kingdom waters.”

“But have you ever sailed in ice and snow?” Captain Sura put her hand to her chin. “I would hate to break the hull upon a hidden iceberg.”

Azula smiled at her. “We’re fast learners, and we’re strong. We’re the best you’ll find to help crew your ship.”

“And what kind of arrangements are you looking for? A permanent place or temporary?”

“We need to go to the South Pole on a diplomatic mission,” Suki said. “If we could return with you somewhere to the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation—“

Captain Sura laughed, slapping her thighs with her hands. “The Fire Nation. As if we’d ever go there willingly. No, my trade is limited strictly between the Earth Kingdom and the Southern Water Tribe. We’ll hit up a few islands on the way there and again on the way back. Trip should take about a month, I reckon, unless your mission requires a lengthier stay?”

“It shouldn’t take long, I promise,” Azula said.

“If it does, you have my permission to kill me,” Mai said.

Ty Lee laughed. “Ignore her, she’s just had a long day.”

“We leave at daybreak,” Captain Sura said. “Don’t be late.”

They weren’t late, and they met Captain Sura on the dock. They were welcomed, briefly, and they were set to work. It was hard work, and the ship was crowded with goods.

Azula worked herself to exhaustion, so that she might fall quickly asleep. But still, she woke during the night in a cold sweat, her thin garments stuck to her skin, crusted with salt. The boat pitched back and forth on choppy waves, and the wind billowed the narrow, blue banner fluttering wildly at the top of the mast.

Azula clutched her stomach as she scrambled across the deck and was sick over the side of the ship.

Her belly heaved until there was nothing left to throw up, and she pressed the hard wood against her stomach, to press the nausea away, as her body wracked itself with tremors and sickness.

A gloved hand offered her dried mint leaves, something from Uncle Iroh’s tea shop probably. “Here,” Mai said.

Azula took them and munched, not swallowing in case she threw up again. Her mouth stun and welled with freshness.

“You don’t get seasick,” Mai said.

“Then I must not be seasick.” Azula’s voice was hoarse through her swollen throat. She held her stomach and gasped at the way it twisted and writhed, the way it pained her.

Sweat shone on her skin, and chilled against the cool night breeze. Heat simmered beneath her skin but never sparked into something good. Into something worthwhile. Into fire.

“I used to dream about you in prison." Mai looked out over towards the moon. It was waning. "Alone, without friends. But you were already alone when you ordered your guards to lock us up. I guess you didn't handle it well."

Azula studied her thoughtfully. It was true. She had been alone after she had imprisoned Mai and Ty Lee, and then she had tried to make sure that not even Zuko could break through the loneliness. “At least I didn't separate you from Ty Lee. I'm sure she kept excellent company with you. Do you ever think about how Zuko never came back for you until after he was Firelord? I said what I said to Sokka to taunt him but that doesn't mean it was a complete lie. Suki did think he would rescue her and he never came until I mocked him with it. But Zuko just left you behind when he had come for a stranger. Did it hurt?”

Mai left as silently as she had come, and Azula leaned against the deck so that the wood was a cool, soothing presence against her hot cheek. She was alone again, and that was something familiar.

Her eyes fluttered closed against the pitching waves, and she thought that sleep would come once more to her.

She woke coughing salt water even as Ty Lee's and Suki's hands pried her from the deck. Shivers wracked her body as they tried to steady her on her feet. Azula’s muscles were rigid, arms frozen against her chest, hands and fingers locked in crooked curves.

“Is she sick?” Ty Lee asked, hovering, as Suki touched her face.

“She’s burning up.” Suki glanced towards Captain Sura, who was ordering the crew and attempting to stow the sails so they could maneuver through the angry waters.

She called for them. “I need your help! Send her below, now!”

“What’s wrong?” Suki said as Mai and Ty Lee shouldered Azula between them.

“Look at the skies,” Sura said. “They’re clear, yet the water acts like a storm is upon us. This is not natural.”

The ship pitched and Mai and Ty Lee lost their balance. Wood slick with water that had splashed overboard, they slid to the stern, trying to catch their grip and failing. Azula clung to the mast, unsteadily.

She was so hot, and the water was so cold.

The ship pitched again and it flung her towards the ship's stern. She clung to the wood, and stared down at the churning ocean. It was slate grey, foamed with white-capped waves. It seemed to spiral, coils of water drilling through the depths as if it searched for the very bottom. The ship struggled against the force of the whirlpool. The captain shouted orders. The crew struggled to fulfill them as they looked scared and frightened.

In a daze, Azula climbed the ring of wood surrounding the deck. She had done this before, she thought, as she swayed to and fro, matching her movements with the pitching ship. A chill shook her hands, while her skin clammed with a sick sweat. She clutched to a wildly flapping rope that had come free as she tried to secure her footing on the slippery railings.

If she just jumped, the water would close over her. She would sink into the colder depths, until the ice crystalized around her, and she would be free of this burning fever that made her so weak and useless.

She took a deep breath as she prepared to jump. Spray splashed her face as she released the rope and looked down into the churning waters, waiting for the ship to lean just right, providing a clear path to fall into the center of the funnel of water.

Something pulled at her, at her free hands. It was Mai and Ty Lee, struggling to bring her down. “Don’t do it, Azula, don’t jump!” Ty Lee pleaded. Salt water streamed through her hair as her pale hands clenched bruises into Azula's aching skin.

Mai said nothing but her grip was tight as she stared at Azula.

“It’s going to be fine,” Azula said. “Look—“ and she gestured with her chin to something that shone and shimmered in the water, something that could have been physical, something that probably wasn't. It was a purple luminescence slicking its way up through the water, up towards them. She turned to look down at Ty Lee. "Don't you think it's pretty?"

It came with one of the waves that washed over the deck of the ship. It gripped Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula, it dragged them overboard, it disappeared beneath the surface below.

The waters stilled instantly, and when Suki, lashing herself to a long length of rope, dove overboard, there was no sign of the spirit or the Fire Nation girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find out what happens to Azula and friends in the first chapter of Book 3: Flame: [[click here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7801354)]


End file.
